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Don't trust the media to tell you what happens at Trump's coronavirus press briefings

by Eddie Scarry

April 20, 2020 03:11 PM

 

 

Liberal New York Times columnist Charles Blow, never better than late, made the case on Sunday for television news outlets to air the White House coronavirus task force press briefings live from top to bottom.

He did it by accident, but he did it nonetheless.

"Under no circumstance should these briefings be carried live," Blow wrote. "Doing so is a mistake bordering on journalistic malpractice." He later added that the briefings hold little news value, as demonstrated by the fact that "the major headlines from these briefings are often Trump’s clashes with reporters, the differences he has with scientists and the lies he tells."

But, Blow, my dear, sweet Blow, those "major headlines" are being written by the intermediaries — the writers and producers. They are precisely why the public can't count on the media-filtered versions of the briefings. And that's why we need to see the briefings for ourselves.

If we counted on the media's digested account of what happened at the briefings, for instance, everyone would be forgiven for believing that Trump showed up to each one wearing a white coat and stethoscope while administering doses of chloroquine to infected patients. In Blow's very own column, he perpetuates the lie that Trump pushed the drug as a surefire cure. "In fact," wrote Blow, "some of what Trump has said has been dangerous, like when he pushed an unproven and potentially harmful drug as a treatment for the virus."

That's not what Trump said. In fact, he accurately said that some doctors had found that it might help people with COVID-19 in their recovery. Trump said it showed promise and he hoped that it would work on a nationwide scale. So what?

The briefings could be shorter — an hour, barring any major developments that require additional time to spell out. That would essentially be a 50% reduction to the length of the current briefings, which drag on and on as reporters such as Playboy's Brian Karem look to pick a fight or PBS's Yamiche Alcindor push some official to say sorry for having offended some random group of online people who feign concern for minorities.

But if the choice is between enduring the self-congratulations of journalists on Twitter for their bottomless "courage" after a two-hour live briefing or else only getting the snippets that CNN decides are important, then I choose the former every time.

If journalists themselves are irritated by the parts of the briefing that their bosses choose to emphasize, they should take it up with them. Either way, we certainly can't count on the media to choose what parts of the events are truly important to the public.

EM         -> { Trump for 2020 }

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