This post might come across as too political for this thread, but that isn't my intent. My complaint with the media isn't political. My complaint isn't that they are concentrating on the President, good or bad depending on the news organization. Yesterday on the CNN website, 15 of the 22 stories at the top of the page were strictly about the President. I didn't read any of those. I did read one of the 7 that were not about the President, and it derided the President several times. It is a pretty compelling story about the first diagnosed patient in WV, and how his wife jumped through many hoops to get him tested and treated. She:
- Called the 1-800 number from WV State notifications about the virus but it didn't work.
- Called the state health department and was told to take him to a doctor
- Called the doctor's office and was told he couldn't go there to call the state health department
- Took him to the emergency room at a hospital but was told that he couldn't enter the hospital and to call the 1-800 number
- Convinced the head nurse to look at her husband through the car window, the hospital then took him through a back entrance and swabbed him to test - She was told that the results would be ready in five days
- Five days later, she called the ER for results and was told to call the state lab.
- She called the state lab who told her to call the county health department.
- She called the county health department who told her that they had no record of her husband being tested.
- She then received a call back from the ER who told her that her husbands swabs had been lost, so he needed to come back in for a second screening.
That is a pretty compelling story. However, the story on CNN has several barbs at the president included in the story. People who are fans of the president are going to stop reading. People who don't like the president are going to pick out bits and pieces to use in arguments about the president. The human interest and system failure points of the story are lost on all except those who ignore the political rancor.
What I would like to see from all across the political spectrum of new is more information and less commentary. I understand that news organizations are going to have commentary, but I wish they would separate factual journalism from opinion. Tell me what is happening in California and Florida without praising one governor and belittling the other. In the press conferences, get actual information from Fauci, FEMA, HHS, etc and don't spend a large portion of the conference attempting to goad the President into making statements that will raise your ratings numbers. The President and the press seem more like an episode of Desperate Housewives of DC than a President and the press corp. I would rather hear from the people standing behind the President and a press corp that actually report information.