Eric Boehlert: The press shrugs -- how Biden made beating Covid look easy

[babylonsister]

The press shrugs — how Biden made beating Covid look easy
No media victory laps
Eric Boehlert
1 hr ago

snip//

It’s been a miraculous worst-to-first turnaround under President Joe Biden, who inherited a Covid crisis at its zenith, with nearly 3,000 American deaths each day. It was a virus calamity that had been mismanaged nearly every day of 2020 by Trump and his virus-denying advisors.

Trashing science and urging people to inject bleach into their bodies, Trump oversaw the worst government response to a public health crisis in U.S. history — 400,000 Americans likely died because of Trump’s incompetence. He spread more deliberate lies about Covid to a larger audience than anyone else on the planet, according to a study from Cornell University. "When it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away," he once predicted.

Under Biden, that nightmare has been turned into an American success story, as the vaccination rollout continues to be a model for the world.

That victory was not pre-ordained. Back in January, the Christian Science Monitor noted, “He faces steep obstacles, with the virus actively spreading in most states, slow progress on the vaccine rollout, and political uncertainty over whether congressional Republicans will help him pass a $1.9 trillion economic relief and COVID-19 response package.”

But Biden pulled it off, far exceeding expectations. So how come he never got a victory lap in the press? Why has the media decided to instantly move on from one of the biggest news stories of the last century — how Covid-19 crippled America and killed more than 600,000 people here. Has the Beltway press in the Biden era simply adopted the mantra that only bad news is real news? Politico actually posted this April headline: "How Good News Could Complicate the Biden Agenda." Note that just 25 percent of Biden’s early news coverage was positive, according to a study from Pew.

more...

https://pressrun.media/p/the-press-shrugs-biden-made-beating

[Buns_of_Fire]

1. Quiet competence just isn't as sexy as a walkin' talkin' train wreck.

Or, as it's been said many times, "If it bleeds, it leads."

[underpants]

2. Biden getting a victory lap would be like a one horse race

If the press fully honestly reported on the disaster of the Trump boggled misdirected distracting self-promoting management he would be buried by history. Simple immediate ratings justify trying to keep him afloat. W has for the most part avoided any real responsibility related to 9/11, we’ll see how Trump is seen in 5 years. Trumps number is really more like half a million.

[multigraincracker]

3. That's what you can do when you hire the best people.

Not relatives and yes men.

[spanone]

4. K&R

[ChrisF1961]

5. It's because the so-called liberal media does not exist

Instead it is a corporate media filled with hacks making big salaries who only care about making a big splash to impress their twitter followers and not reporting the truth.

[pazzyanne]

11. + 1 nt

[gratuitous]

6. The media have chosen to forget

The former guy bragged that he would get 100 million vaccine doses administered by the end of December 2020. The reality? Just over 2 million doses. For the folks in the back, 2 million is considerably less than 100 million.

The Biden administration just quietly went about the business of getting people vaccinated, following long established public health practices, not putting his relatives and cronies in charge of things, and letting the medical professionals do their job. Biden told the country what he was going to do, recruited knowledgeable people to do it, got the country on board, and then (and here's the tricky part that the former guy fell down on so often) did it.

[Tanuki]

7. I always felt the same way about the reaction to President Obama

having pulled the nation back from the brink of a second Great Depression.

[PurgedVoter]

8. The Beltway Press

Owned by conservatives. You know the folk with no values that are guided by conservative values that after you examine them are no values.
Ages ago when the mantra came up saying the press was liberal, it was the beltway press leading the charge.
Notice that a "Liberal" only makes it into the beltway press when they are married to an ultraconservative or they have carefully shown they not just corporate friendly but friendly to the folk that own the corporations.

[DonCoquixote]

9. The media has a vested interest against competence

If politicians were competent and honest, they might have to write something serious, like about poor people, or brown people, or black people.

[pazzyanne]

10. "Has the Beltway press in the Biden era simply adopted the mantra that only bad news is real news?"

YEP, you got that right!!! But it is all media, not just beltway media. I also hate the "Why hasn't Biden...." questions that address hundreds of issues... and he has only been in office a little more than a 100 days. What really burns the biscuits is when the former guy worked hard on making the country sicker, more dangerous, overthrowing democracy and his golf strokes for 4 years,

Oh, I forgot to mention his weekly rallies.

[forgotmylogin]

12. My non tech savvy Dad asked how to get an appointment.

I pulled up a website entered his info, and got him the first shot for the next day and scheduled his follow up shot!

[Lonestarblue]

13. The media is in love with negative stories, not anything positive.

I regularly read the New York Times and the Washington Post, both media giants that conservatives accuse of being ultra liberal. Yet both often focus on negative aspects of whatever is happening. Today the Post has an opinion piece about how Republican racism reared its ugly head in Kristen Clarke’s nomination. Instead of a real article reporting Clarke’s confirmation and perhaps expanding on the diversity, experience, and quality of Biden’s appointees, we get a piece about Republicans’ time-worn racism. Other Post headlines today are on growing resistance to vaccines, it’s time to get children back to normal (as if that hasn’t been Biden’s goal), and Biden passing the buck on the origin of Covid.

The Times had a piece on the cost of Biden’s CDC being cautious about Covid, along with another opinion that Biden and Moon are all wrong about North Korea, along with a headline on a Tom Friedman piece about the Mideast conflict blowing up Israel and the Democratic Party. The headline is misleading, as is often the case with the Post and the Times.

I also read The Guardian, which I believe does a better job of not being so overtly negative. The country’s economy and people are recovering from Covid, Biden’s infrastructure and family plans offer enormous benefits to the working class, the Biden administration is making strides to reengage our allies, and world respect for the US is returning, but you might never know any of that from reading our media.

[peggysue2]

14. Only bad news is real news

Only chaos and craziness is real news because the stories write themselves. The media became addicted to the Trumpster's endless nonsense, disinformation and tweets.

Joe Biden is boring in the best kind of way--he's doing the work of the Office of the Presidency with skill, knowledge and compassion.

What a concept!

[BobTheSubgenius]

15. Not only did the President exceed exprectations put upon him, he exceeded his own!

I'm inclined to believe that, from the start, he was aiming higher than "100 in 100," but either didn't want to set himself up for failure - more of a shortcoming, but he wasn't about to be given even the semblance of a Mulligan - or, do what clever people often do - underpromise and overdeliver.

Also, consider the alternative. Had he lost the election, in whatever manner, the death toll would have, or would still, reach the doomsday numbers that were forecast - 1,000,000 to 2,000,000. And, while not wanting to be a Debbie Downer, while science has got this thing on the run, anti-science is still going to claim victims. Nowhere near 2,000,000, but some.

[BobTheSubgenius]

17. I'd like to add...

...that we in Canada that think about such things are very grateful for the cooperation the US govt. and the GIGANTIC US pharma industry extended. With fewer antivaxxers per capita, and a nicely thought-out plan, we now have a timetable for, not just a relaxation of restrictions, but a complete return to pre-COVID life.

Without the Big Pharma that exists south of the 49th, I really believe we'd be floundering and making little progress. It was slow at first, but once the supply chain was established and up to speed, Canada jumped into 3rd place among OECD countries for per capita penetration. No pun intended.

It still seems a bit unreal. But thanks go out to everyone that had a part in it.

[Yavin4]

16. I too have noticed that only the bad news about COVID-19 gets coverage.

There was a story recently that the vaccines are effective against the Indian variant, but not a peep on MSNBC or other outlets. Heck, I posted it here on DU and got no response.

Worldwide cases and deaths are dropping. The vaccines are working as advertised. The key now is get more people around the world vaccinated and get the economies to open up.

[BobTheSubgenius]

18. I regret not seeing your post.

That is excellent news indeed, and people should know that. That particular variant quickly jumped to the top of the list for variant infections here. Good news should DEFINITELY be spread wider. Who knows, it might even tip some of the undecided over to rationality.

In our local health district (about 400,000 people), the infection rate fell from over 270 to 34 in just a few weeks. People should know that.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. "Has the Beltway press in the Biden era simply adopted the mantra that only bad news is real news?"

I noticed that many of the outlets swapped assigned correspondents out with the change of administrations, so it's almost a whole new "fresh and rested" crew ready with the latest round of bullshit filled with "bothsides" and "whatabouts" and "whyhaven'tyous".

[Botany]

20. More Americans died in less than one year to C-19 than in all of WW II*. Joe Biden** has crushed...

... it in under 6 months. Still plenty of work to do and we need to still listen to the experts but this
was and still is an outstanding job.

* 405,399 (wiki)

** And his corona virus team.

And now Joe has people working on climate change.

Link to tweet

We can tackle the climate crisis head-on with a new Civilian Climate Corps. The American Jobs Plan will invest $10 billion to put Americans to work conserving our public lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, and advancing environmental justice.

[ancianita]

21. As the press has been with Democrats, so it is now with Biden. I love your posts from Boehlert,

the most thoughtful media critic I know of.

More from his Pew study link:

Another difference worth noting: While the president’s political skills was among the most frequently covered topics in the early days of the Trump administration (17% of stories), it was the focus of a much smaller share of stories about Biden’s early days in office (7%)

.



My take from the above is that the number of stories might reflect what each White House chose to emphasize to the press across the two administrations.


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The pie chart might also reflect the attention given to how much media ignore the constant Republican blocks/attacks/undermining of Democratic and presidential work done.

My take on media since Biden's inauguration -- they

-- ignore country-over-party competence.

-- amplify party-over-country drama.

-- flog problems that mostly Republicans see.

-- doggedly doubt any progressive changes the administration supports.

American media hate greatness.

[FuzzyRabbit]

22. Rules for the TV news and newspapers, especially Fox.

When the president is a Democrat:
1 - Do not report anything positive that Biden's administration does.
2 - Find negative things Biden does and report those.
3 - If you cannot find anything negative to report, make something up.
4 - If you cannot think of anything to make up, ask why haven't they fixed something that is impossible to fix, ie the mid-east crisis.

Here are a couple examples of scandals from Obama's time.
1 - Wearing a tan suit.
2 - Ordering Dijon mustard.
Maybe the press can use these for inspiration.

[Blue Owl]

23. That's how REAL leaders do it

The Obama/Biden administration nipped the Ebola threat so early in the bud that it never became a pandemic, because they delegated leadership to smart, competent professionals.

Unlike t***p who threw away Obama’s pandemic playbook out of spite...