Surprise: CNN Chyrons Show Network Selectively Applies 'Per Capita' Label to Wuhan Virus Stats for U.S. Cases

FILE – This Jan. 17, 2001 file photo shows pedestrians entering CNN Center, the headquarters for CNN, in downtown Atlanta. The latest rough patch for CNN illustrates the two contradictions at the network’s heart. (AP Photo/Ric Feld, File)

Not surprisingly, the mainstream media rushed to report with much fanfare earlier this week that the United States had passed China and Italy on the number of confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus.

Their reports became even more animated when the number reached over 100,000. Here are some examples of headlines on both stories:

–USA Today: U.S. passes Italy, China as nation with the most confirmed cases of COVID-19
–NY Times: The U.S. Now Leads the World in Confirmed Coronavirus Cases
–WaPo: Coronavirus death toll in U.S. reaches 1,000 as number of confirmed cases passes China
–CNN: US coronavirus cases reach more than 101,000 as reported deaths hit new daily high
–CNN: US has more known cases of coronavirus than any other country

In terms of trying to keep things in perspective, what all of these pieces conveniently leave out are a couple of important things:

1) Because China has lied about so many other things related to the Wuhan coronavirus, there’s a strong likelihood that they have vastly underreported thousands of cases. So their numbers are probably much higher.

2) Though any confirmed case is sad, and any coronavirus death is a tragedy, in terms of the per capita rate (scroll) of confirmed cases, the United States is in better shape than most countries with a large amount of cases, including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Iran.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at CNN’s “reporting” from two different programs Friday. One featured President Trump talking about the number of tests that have been done so far in the U.S. and the other mentions how the U.S. now “leads the world” in the number of confirmed Wuhan coronavirus cases.

But notice how the chyron for the report on the confirmed number of cases leaves out any per capita information, unlike the one for testing:

If you want to rank things per capita at least be consistent. Both of these chyrons are from today. pic.twitter.com/jE54Z3fWm9

— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) March 28, 2020

Interesting, right?

I’m not inclined to give CNN the benefit of the doubt here nor am I going to assume it was just an oversight on someone’s part to leave out the per capita information.

I’m going to guess that they deliberately left that information out of the New Day segment because in both instances they were trying to paint distorted pictures of what’s actually happening, just as many media outlets have done over the last several weeks in their “reporting” on the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak here in America.

Considering their admitted political leanings, it’s not exactly a surprise to see that CNN did this. But it’s still appalling all the same.