Thanks To Media Elites . . . The “New Normal” Might Not Be So Kind
By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
The past few weeks have been like living in an episode of The Twilight Zone. During breaks in coverage of the coronavirus coverage, Fox News broadcasts pictures of the deserted streets our major metropolitan areas. Even here (Iowa) where many can still get out and around, the stores, except for grocery, pharmacies, and a few others are all closed.
Maybe by the time this column is printed things will be better. I’m not sure it will be, I think society has another couple of months in this limbo, neither dead nor alive but hovering somewhere in-between.
One place that has not closed for the duration, however, is the news media. I can’t help but to wonder that if, like much of society, after the virus it will look different — much different. The journalism that I was taught in college has long disappeared and it has been replaced by so many egotistical on-air reporters and anchors that the hallowed profession is only a shadow of what it once was.
I often watch New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s press conferences. He handles himself well and I note that the reporters ask him pretty relevant questions. In the afternoon I try to watch President Trump’s presser. Interestingly, for the reporters there it seems every other question is a gotcha question, one not asked to evoke or clarify facts, but one designed as a confrontation.
After watching it’s an easy jump to the conclusion that journalism has undergone a regression to the state it was in during the early days of our republic. It is now completely partisan, driven by the desire not to inform, but to promote an agenda the biggest part of which is to get rid of Donald Trump.
What I find so reprehensible nowadays is that the fight against the coronavirus is taking on a political hue and the media are playing along, not reporting objectively, but taking sides and casting Mr. Trump as the villain as if he was responsible for the crisis.
Example: Most of the mainstream media (MSM) have piled on Mr. Trump for comments made about the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus and have been strident about their defense of China and critical of the China travel ban. Besides the fact that is where the virus originated, and the Communist-controlled government (along with the World Health Organization) hid facts and tried to cover up the seriousness of the virus, China is portrayed as having done an admirable job and is now coming to the rescue of the rest of the world.
Of course, the travel ban was racist; Orange man hates Yellow man, or so their thinking seems to go.
And when the president mentioned the possibility of using the drug hydroxychloroquine to help fight the virus the ceiling fell in on him. Despite the fact that the drug has been around for over three decades without major negative side effects, and that there is a pile of antidotal evidence that it has been found to be effective in treating the virus.
Of course that can’t be true, it’s just Donald Trump trying to make people feel good. He lies, of course, and several governors banned the use of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of the virus. And, of course, we now know why: according to MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host, Mika Brzezinski, Mr. Trump owns stock in the company that produces the drug, thus he has a financial incentive to promote what host Joe Scarborough calls an “unproven drug.”
The fact that this is untrue doesn’t stop them. Trump is bad, the media are good. He lies, they tell the truth. That’s all you need to know.
In the same vein, “Good Morning America” warned viewers that the president was promoting a drug that could kill you, despite the fact that hydroxychloroquine is currently approved for coronavirus treatment in New York hospitals and is being prescribed by doctors across the country.
And The New York Times’ Gail Collins even suggested that the virus should be called “Trumpvirus.”
The president is also being blamed for calling the epidemic a “hoax.” That is common among news reporters, but overlooked is what he actually said. He never called the virus a hoax. What he did call a hoax was the attempt to politicize it. He was “referring to the action that they [Democrats] take to try and pin this on somebody because we’ve done such a good job. The hoax is on them. I’m not talking about what’s happening here. I’m talking what they’re doing. That’s the hoax.”
Of course, don’t let the facts stand in the way of a good story! It’s still all a hoax.
Ahh, now for the smoking gun: The Trump administration closed the White House pandemic office. According to Beth Cameron, a former Obama official who once ran the office, the elimination of the office “has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response” to the coronavirus.
Wow! I think we got him now. But hold your horses. The Washington Post ran an article from former Trump official Tim Morrison who said, “No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office.” He said that the office, which he headed for a year, was combined with another to streamline the organization, “the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled,” he wrote.
Okay, but that’s not part of the narrative. Trump closed the office and now we all suffer, because, as Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander put it, “This is the most despicable man to ever inhabit the Oval Office. Thousands will die needlessly for his arrogance and incompetence.”
And when Mr. Trump opined that he would like to have churches open for Easter Sunday, he was pilloried. CNN pundit Chris Cillizza suggested that the president was using Easter as a firm date for a reopening of the economy. But that is not what he said — what he did say was, “I’d love to have it open by Easter, OK? I would love to have it open by Easter.”
After CNN ran the story, the president clarified by stating that the Easter goal was aspirational. Not good enough for Cillizza, who said, “Trump is rewriting history here. At the time he said he hoped church pews would be full for Easter Sunday he never suggested that was an aspirational goal. He just said it.” Okay, I guess “I’d love to have it” means a firm date, at least to the media looking to trip up the president.
Finally, from ABC’s Nightline: Host Byron Pitts was interviewing Vice President Mike Pence. Noting that the VP was a man of faith, he asked, “When you talk to God in your moments alone, do you find yourself worrying at all that people you represent, and care deeply about, have died and will die who did not need to because of steps the federal government did not take soon enough?”
So much for fairness and objectivity from the media. Anyway, I think you’re getting the picture so I don’t need to go into the media’s criticism of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell who, while announcing he was redirecting his manufacturing to making masks, he referenced God and the Bible. Naturally, that was too much for so many in the MSM.
Nor do I need to go into New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attack against Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse as “biased” because Graham is “homophobic” for not supporting LGBTQ rights. While Samaritan’s Purse has built a 68-bed field hospital to help with the hospital overflow, de Blasio promised “to send people over from [his] office to monitor” the organization.
So Trump is wrong — always, the Bible and God are irrelevant; and Christian values, like helping people in need, are suspect and must be monitored. Got it? Welcome to the new normal.
God save us from that.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him Thursday mornings on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
