That journalism is dead has been a punchline for so long that we’ve forgotten how that fact has real world consequences. We’re now paying the price for the failure of that profession to hold itself to any semblance of standards. As worry and straight-up panic sweep large swaths of the country, causing irrational toilet paper hoarding and runs on canned goods, there is no outlet and no journalist worthy of trust when it comes to conveying truthful information to the public or to hold anyone in power accountable.
Eight years of sycophantic, throne sniffing coverage under President Barack Obama gave way to four years of nitpicking, hostility, and conspiracy theories. There are no standards anymore; if someone on TV hates President Trump, there is no outrageous, medically dubious statement they can make on CNN or MSNBC that will be challenged and if they love him, there is nothing that will be challenged on Fox. The opposite is true on those networks if you replace “President Trump” with any Democrat.
This cheerleading is fine if the story is about politics, but this isn’t about politics, this is about life and death. Coronavirus is a serious threat, but only to a very small segment of the population. Hyping or downplaying it is profoundly unhelpful when honesty is needed. But there isn’t anyone trusted across the board in media to convey truthful information.
So you get manufactured panic and runs on toilet paper; supermarkets have empty shelves and fights break out over a lack of basics.
Media Democrats hype death totals without providing important perspective, perpetuating panic because it’s good for ratings and their party. More people are in danger from the panic being incited by pundits, politicians, and journalists than they are from coronavirus. You’d never know that if you turned on your TV.
But ask yourself an important question: if coronavirus is the threat they portray it as, why are liberals engaging in an argument over semantics?
If lives are at risk, why has every major left-wing news outlet wasted crucial time focusing on how they’ve declared calling it the “Chinese coronavirus” or the “Wuhan virus” to be racist and a threat to social order? Especially after they’d spent weeks calling it those very things, only declaring it problematic after a couple of Republicans followed their lead and called it the same thing.
“Politicians’ Use of ‘Wuhan Virus’ Starts a Debate Health Experts Wanted to Avoid,” read one New York Times headline. The Atlantic ran one reading, “Why Trump Intentionally Misnames the Coronavirus.” The answer, according to them: because the President wants people to blame China for the outbreak. But China is responsible for the outbreak.
Before it became widespread, China rejected help from the CDC and WHO, as reported by the New York Times itself. “C.D.C. and W.H.O. Offers to Help China Have Been Ignored for Weeks,” the Times reported on February 7th. Do liberal reporters not read the Times? Possibly.
It also seems like liberal reporters and pundits don’t watch MSNBC or CNN, even those employed by those networks. The current talking point is to call noting the place of origin of coronavirus (something common when it comes to naming viruses) racist. Yet these very same people did it countless times themselves, only deciding it’s problematic AFTER Republicans joined them. “Trump’s coronavirus speech was laced with xenophobia,” declared Vox because Trump noted it was a “foreign virus.”
Democrats are also fundraising off coronavirus and aren’t being called out for it.
These are unserious people in a time of serious challenges. The world’s greatest minds in the field of infectious diseases are working to save the lives of older, vulnerable people and they see opportunity. Senators fret, “Right now in America, it is easier to get an AR-15 than a test kit for COVID-19,” while noted liberals complain, “Note that Trump’s coronavirus team is all male, all old, and all white,” while there are women, one a woman of color, speaking at that very moment.
These are but a few examples of the unserious and partisan actions of the left, there are countless more.
The left is portraying coronavirus as an existential threat to life on Earth while not missing a beat when it comes to their political agenda and electoral strategy, even trying to cram federal money for abortions into the “emergency” coronavirus funding bill.
Meanwhile, Fox has stupid, counterproductive shouting matches and hasn’t disrupted their streak of having the same 12 contributors on all the time talking about every subject. Let me tell you a little secret – if you see a pundit on TV talking about every subject under the Sun, from trade wars and Iran to the election and a pandemic, you are not getting useful information, you are getting opinion. From the 9 person CNN panel, to the MSNBC roundtable, to the “faceoff” on Fox, you are being entertained, not informed. If that’s what you want, fine; but if that’s not what you need, you’re out of luck.
People are going into debt to stock up on food, businesses are suffering and many will not survive. Life is being upended, panic is being induced, and a large percentage of the political world is giddy at the prospect.
The death of journalism has left Americans with nowhere to turn to for reliable, honest reporting. All of these outlets could and should have only experts on to talk about coronavirus. What someone on the payroll with zero background in medicine thinks about this situation might be good for ratings, but it’s not journalism. And people tune in to news networks expecting to get news, especially in times like this.
Unfortunately, you can’t find news anymore because journalism is dead. It didn’t die of coronavirus, it didn’t even die of Trump Derangement Syndrome (though that helped push it over the edge), it was a slow suicide. And now we’re paying the price.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!), host of a daily radio show on WCBM in Maryland, and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.