Did the Media ‘Minimize the Risk’ of Coronavirus Early On?

No more than the government did.

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During his daily coronavirus task force press briefing Monday, President Trump played a video intended to highlight his administration’s success in combating the virus. The video was split into three parts: The first focused on how “[t]he media minimized the risk from the start”; the second offered a timeline of actions taken by the federal government; and the third was a compilation of governors from both political parties praising Trump and his team for their work with the state governments.

Let’s look at the claims that the media “minimized the risk from the start” and put them into context of what was known. 

Four news clips played showing various media figures downplaying the threat of coronavirus from January 25 to February 8. The first two, from January 25, featured ABC’s andNBC’s medical correspondents, Dr. Jennifer Ashton and Dr. John Torres, respectively, saying coronavirus wasn’t yet at the level of threat to the U.S. as the flu. At the time of their comments, the CDC reported 15 million flu cases in the United States and 8,200 deaths, with only two coronavirus cases and zero coronavirus deaths. 

A clip from January 27 showed Dr. Anthony Fauci on Fox News being questioned by Sean Hannity about the possibility of coronavirus being worse than anticipated. Fauci did not speak during the clip included in the video. Elsewhere in the interview, however, Dr. Fauci stated that “It’s a low risk, but the situation in China is very, very mobile in the sense that it’s evolving. It’s not a static situation. So it could get much worse.”

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  1. SF Anony

    It seems to me that if you invert both the headline and sub-headline, they would still be true:

    "Did The White House 'Minimize the Risk' of COVID-19 Early On?"

    "No More Than the Media Did."

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    A Citizen

    The incoherence of the whole "listen to the experts" or "follow the science" mantra is laid bare here. Each of these news reports chose to make reports based on stuff they heard from "experts." And the government chose to make the statements they made in consultation with experts, who also had a wide variety of opinions. And even Trump presumably heard everything he said in at least some bastardized version as he understood it from somewhere. In a situation characterized by an extreme lack of reliable information, depending on "experts" isn't much better than depending on your own ass, unless you are doing so for the point of deflecting responsibility. Who were the media reporting that "nobody knows?" Those are the only ones who happened to be correct in retrospect. And they's only be doing so either by (a) actually evaluating the competing claims of experts, which they are not qualified to do; or (b) choosing those particular experts who happened to claim "nobody knows." Neither the "sky is falling" or "nothing to see here" opinions were correct, except by chance.

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    1. M Todd

      I respectfully disagree. Experts even in highly volitile situation with little information are still a better source of information than "depending on your own ass". They have a perspective far beyond the non-expert but that does not make them fortune tellers and the science of biology as always been a "soft" science. I think many of the expert statements cited in the article are well-founded. They acknowledge the uncertainty but also make it clear that it could get bad - this is exactly what they should do.

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        A Citizen

        OK... Maybe I was a bit hyperbolic. The problem (as the Scott Alexander piece partly makes clear) is that the people don't want uncertainty and there is no market to publish uncertainty. There is a deep human desire to convert uncertain statement into certainty. I ask you to read the Scott Alexander piece (warning... it's long) especially the pieces on divergent opinion until it was too late. There will always be a genuine expert who says "don't worry about this" and one who says "worry now" and another who says "this is a low probability event with the possibility of becoming a high probability event." You must listen to one of them, and by definition you have no way to judge because you aren't an expert. Thus, you fall back to "depending on your own ass." As Scott points out, of course, cost-benefit analysis usually doesn't depend very much on getting predictions precisely right, of course. So there's that.

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      A Citizen

      And I just found that Scott Alexander said it much better than me yesterday... https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/04/14/a-failure-but-not-of-prediction/ "Their main excuse is that they were just relaying expert opinion – the sort of things the WHO and CDC and top epidemiologists were saying. I believe them. People on Twitter howl and gnash their teeth at this, asking why the press didn’t fact-check or challenge those experts. But I’m not sure I want to institute a custom of journalists challenging experts....The role of science journalists is to primarily to relay, explain, give context to the opinions of experts, not to try to out-medicine the doctors. So I think this is a good excuse.

      But I would ask this of any journalist who pleads that they were just relaying and providing context for expert opinions: what was the experts’ percent confidence in their position?

      I am so serious about this. What fact could possibly be more relevant? What context could it possibly be more important to give? I’m not saying you need to have put a number in your articles, maybe your readers don’t go for that. But were you working off of one? Did this question even occur to you?

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    KAM

    I don't care WHO started it, you kids, I swear, if I have to pull this car over, you are BOTH in big trouble, and those are the only "facts" you both should be checking.

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  4. Dave D.

    Nice job providing full context and a balanced look at how the media reported on the seriousness or lack thereof as this event unfolded. Of course, that is also what the media should do in its reporting on politicians, which it can’t ever manage unless the name is followed by a “D”. Which is kind of the point don’t you think?

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    Visibly

    Have you seen that Trump will stop support for WHO?

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    Logical

    "I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help," the most loathsome statemrnt according to Ronald Reagan. BTW, Trump has been saying that in a closed loop for the last two days. Curious how that's going with the cons, especially the pro-Trumpers.

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    Billy.Faires

    Let's pretend someone could enter this moment in our history carrying no baggage or prejudice about the first two years of Trump's presidency. Let's pretend this person could walk into this moment free of toxic vibes aimed at either DJT or "the media." How could any reasonably sane person (who believes in what the US claims to stand for) witness what he did and what he claimed yesterday, be shown clearly and factually how duplicitous and self-serving his claims were, and not walk away worried by the person who holds the highest elected office in our country?

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    1. Bruce Wing

      I still believe that is the incorrect frame through which to understand the support for Trump, but I agree with your point as you make it.

      What drives me crazy is the "horror" of those that point to Trump's clearly unconstitutional statements about federal authority.... given the passivity of many of those same people to a previous president's words and deeds when it related to immigration law.... and the authority granted to the executive branch under the U.S. Constitution.

      Hypocrisy again....by everyone.

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    Earl King

    I'll simply say the media by reporting death numbers only, and not recovery numbers and not providing context is horrid journalism. I do some hysteria....a failure to remind people the vast majority will recover. There were politicians including Trump talking about go about your business in late February. Pelosi famously telling people in late February go to Chinatown. She is on the Gang of Eight...What did they all know. Fauci also was basically saying people can do this or that. Mitigation in February would likely have proven a failure publicly, could you imagine Trump asking to delay the SC Primary?
    Everybody worldwide missed opportunity..The blame lays with China. Our experience with the 3 recent possible pandemics was certainly mixed. Obama didn't declare an emergency until 1000 people died. SARS didn't produce the deaths we worried about nor MERS. Our experts also thought this virus would be more like SARS which is not as contagious.

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    1. Bruce Wing

      Part of the blame rests with China, this is true. However, I sincerely do not believe we would have acted a whole lot differently had China been forthcoming from the outset.

      IMO, almost no-one in the West BELIEVED that we would be hit as hard as we were by COVID-19. The last 30 years of history provides a reasonable basis for that belief. But we were wrong.

      There will be a price to pay for being wrong, but I sincerely believe we are trying to find a scapegoat more than anything else. That does not mean that Trump has not lied about past positions and over-generalized the situation. He certainly deserves criticism for not - as I understand it - communicating with the governors about the state of affairs, etc. Those criticisms having been made, there have been good decisions made by the US as well (i.e. Getting the CDC onto testing early...even if it did not work. Working to fix the testing problem.... and the US is now doing a stellar job. Creating an infrastructure of solutions that includes a government directed track that is top down organized AND a private company track that is bottom-up chaotic, but innovative.).

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        Visibly

        In Oxford, the departments started emailing all staff and students, warning about the virus, by late January. The outbreak was no surprise, but a failure of authorities to act. I am from a medical family. We joked with our sister going to Ischgl in late Feb for ski holiday about the virus. She came back extremely sick, and is just now recovering. So, we all make mistakes, but the importance is to admit mistakes, and find the right way forward.

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