‘We Can Pool the World’s Science to Develop Better Medical Tools’
“If one country fails to control the pandemic, other countries are going to pay a price. And so we all need to be working together on it.”
Are People Getting Sick Staying Home Alone? That’s Not What a Misinterpreted Survey Said
It would indeed be worrisome if people were ending up in the hospital despite observing lockdown restrictions, but there’s no reason to think from the information provided in a new survey that that’s the case.
NYT’s ‘Real Coronavirus Death Toll’ Is Anything But
The New York Times graphics department has done some great work translating the data of the Covid-19 pandemic into visual form, allowing readers to get an intuitive sense of the scope and course of the outbreak. Their “Real Coronavirus Death Toll in Each State” (5/5/20) is not a good example of that great work. […]
Gov. Hogan’s Purchase of Korean Covid Tests Looks Like a PR stunt—and Media Fell for It
The Maryland governor offers an irresistible profile for the media: a Republican—yes, a Republican!—who criticizes Trump. Having checked that box, little else mattered.
Ricardo Salvador on the Food System & Covid-19
There is hope that the spotlight the pandemic is putting on problems in our food system could be the light by which we make changes.
‘There’s a Perceived Need to Get This Over With So We Can Get Back to Work’
“You do see a lot of coverage that assumes that the two choices are to sit in our homes and have people basically go bankrupt as they can’t work, or else to force them back into the workplace and have them take their chances with the coronavirus.”
Why It’s Wrong (and Racist) to Blame Covid-19 on Chinese ‘Wet Markets’
What is considered acceptable or “strange” meat is often the result of arbitrary cultural norms, and Chinese food is being stigmatized by racist and propagandistic news coverage following the Covid-19 outbreak.
Newspapers Won’t Connect the Dots on Postal Service Threats
Election Focus 2020: Gutting the Postal Service now has the potential to undermine the integrity of the November election. Yet establishment media seem remarkably uninterested in connecting the dots.
Media Washes Hands of—and With—Boris Johnson
As the number of official deaths in Britain now exceeds those who died during the Blitz in World War II, British media have no alternative but to throw Johnson under the bus.
It’s Crucial to Distinguish Between Can’t and Won’t—With a Million Lives at Stake
CNN should note that accepting a 60–70% infection rate means accepting a million deaths or more, assuming a fatality rate of 0.5%—which may be a conservative estimate.
Love Letters to Andrew Cuomo Failed to Check His Record
Election Focus 2020: Particularly in times of crisis, when executive power tends to expand dramatically, media should be holding the powerful to account, not settling for “better than Trump.” And there is plenty to hold Andrew Cuomo to account for.
Lives or Profits? For Corporate Media, It’s a Tough Question
It is perhaps not surprising that the view that profits are more important than lives has been treated as a reasonable opinion by corporate media.
Corporate Looting as ‘Rescue Plan,’ Robber Barons as ‘Saviors’
For a perfect illustration of how corporate media function as ruling class propaganda, watch how they spin a titanic upward redistribution of wealth as a “rescue plan” for the US economy, and paint a robber baron like US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as a “savior” of the American public.
Jim Naureckas on Coronavirus False Choices, Peter Maybarduk on Pharmaceutical Price-Gouging
Corporate media are constitutionally committed to leaving unchallenged the notion that our choice is between sending folks back to workplaces and public spaces that might be unsafe, and letting them stay home and give up paychecks and health insurance.
A Pandemic Is Not a War
Though many public officials and media outlets seem increasingly convinced that we are fighting a war against Covid-19, framing the pandemic in military terms obscures what we need to know and how we can cope with this virus.
By ‘as Successful as Most Other Nations,’ NYT Means Sweden Is 10th Worst in the World
What the New York Times describes as being “as successful in controlling the virus as most other nations” really means having the tenth-worst per capita death toll from the coronavirus in the world.
Rhode Island Only Looks Like It Has a Bad Covid-19 Outbreak Because It Has a Bad Covid-19 Outbreak
More testing is good, but media shouldn’t let states use it as an excuse for out-of-control viral transmission—or as cover for a premature reopening of the economy.
As Covid-19 Forces Emission Reductions, Media Offer Oil Industry Elegies
If you’re looking for corporate media to celebrate the good news of the drop in demand for oil, you will be disappointed. Heck, you won’t even find an acknowledgement of the tradeoffs of oil demand and planetary health in last week’s breathless coverage of the unprecedented market collapse.
Both Sides-ing Bleach Injection
Unfortunately, for journalists stuck in a corporate media system that promotes deference to authority and finds equivalency even when there is none, the president’s dangerous ramblings need to be treated as legitimate and worthy of discussion, even in apparently adversarial media.
Economic Reporting on Hardships of Pandemic Should Explore Market Failures
Editorial boards and journalists should frame economic and public health problems in more structural and systemic terms going forward as they consider the scope of the pandemic.
