President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing on coronavirus in the Brady press briefing room at the White House, Saturday, March 14, 2020, in Washington, as U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson listen. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
In case you missed it, earlier today I wrote about an infuriating tweet from New York Times editor Mara Gay in which Gay deliberately shortened comments President Trump made during a morning conference call with governors regarding the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.
To quickly recap, here was Gay’s tweet misquoting Trump:
Trump told governors this morning they are on their own:
“Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment — try getting it yourselves,” Mr. Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with The New York Times. https://t.co/K0sont7MBc— Mara Gay (@MaraGay) March 16, 2020
Gay’s tweet made it sound like Trump told the states that they were on their own when it came to obtaining the vital supplies they need to fight the virus. What she left out, though, changed the entire context of that quote:
Do you EVER tell the truth?
Let us help you with the rest 👇🏻
“We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.”— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) March 16, 2020
Sadly, Gay is not the only “journalist” out there who has done nothing to dissuade people from the notion that many in the press are more interested in bashing Trump during this crisis than they are in carefully analyzing the wealth of data that actually exists. That, along with related information on how the administration is responding, would help better inform readers and/or viewers as to what is and is not being said and done.
Fortunately, people like writer Stacey Lennox exist in this world to cut through all the media hype and hysteria in order to give us the straight up skinny on what’s really going on.
On Monday morning, Lennox took to the Twitter machine and wrote an 8-tweet thread that gave some critical background on the administration’s efforts:
Politicizing those teams & agencies is the height if ridiculousness as the only three members that will leave government are Azar, Mnuchin & Pence. The rest of them will remain, doing the jobs they do & beating them up is just stupid.
They have been 100% clear. It was our /2
— Stacey – Collectively Guilty of Nothing (@ScotsFyre) March 16, 2020
now that appear to help reduce symptoms & speed recovery. The CDC & state labs were never going to be able to do the amount of testing the situation demands. The CDC had a capacity to do 40-60 a day.
Developing a high throughput test was REQUIRED. And once developed by the /4
— Stacey – Collectively Guilty of Nothing (@ScotsFyre) March 16, 2020
that layman can understand. Secretary Azar is also clear that we are increasing the level of strategic assets & removing barriers to use every tool at the nation’s disposal including DoD assets & others.
If you are truly concerned, please take the time to listen to THEM, not /6
— Stacey – Collectively Guilty of Nothing (@ScotsFyre) March 16, 2020
Do yourself a favor & watch.
And as always, wash your hands, clean shared surfaces, eat well, get plenty of rest & some exercise. Maintain YOUR health & help those around you who may be high risk so they don’t need to be in public places like stores & pharmacies. /end
— Stacey – Collectively Guilty of Nothing (@ScotsFyre) March 16, 2020
She explained in more detail here.
Is everything about their plan perfect? No. Will there be problems along the way? Sadly, yes. And they should be reported on accordingly and adjustments in strategy made carefully and as quickly as possible.
But right now we can’t trust the mainstream media to view the Wuhan coronavirus story through any reasonably objective lens. It’s unfortunate because with so much misinformation being spread on social media and beyond, it is so important for news outlets to show us for once that they can be trusted to honestly report on the latest developments.
Instead, media outlets like the New York Times are part of the problem.
There are a lot of people, including people like me, who are finding it hard to resist the urge to mash the panic button in the midst of all the negative stories that make it seem like all hope is lost.
It’s not lost. Not by a long shot.
There’s a game plan underway that hopefully will accelerate efforts by local, state, and federal officials to give healthcare workers the resources they need to combat the Wuhan coronavirus. Cutting the red tape and bureaucracy will play a BIG part in that. This is a key component to the Trump administration’s strategy. Whether or not it ultimately works remains to be seen. Let’s pray that it does.
And the sooner the better.
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