When the star of ‘The Angry Birds Movie’ is your go-to expert…
The press in this country during the coronavirus pandemic has become an insufferable lot. There has been a steady string of stark contradictions in their narratives, as every development is covered only from the standpoint of how to negatively impact the president. Note how early on Trump was criticized over a lack of a travel ban, and then once he instituted a flight ban he was called a racist for doing so.
One other contradiction seen has been one of the pettiest between a network and the White House. After media outlets had initially said the country needed to be updated on progress from the administration, we quickly began getting the daily briefings from the Coronavirus Task Force — and soon the media changed their stance. As soon as polling came out to show the president was receiving favorable results from the general public over his handling of the crisis there was an audible shift from the media outlets to stop covering these briefings.
The justification being offered up is that Trump is delivering too much disinformation. Some of the more petty outlets have taken to derisively called the briefings ‘’rallies’’, in order to qualify their avoidance. CNN, in particular, has been vocal about not covering the entirety of these daily updates, and that obstinance has led to a reprisal of sorts. Vice President Mike Pence heads up the task force and he has just announced that members Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci will no longer be made available to the network for interviews.
In an attempt to pressure CNN into airing the White House task force briefings in full, Vice President Mike Pence's office is declining to allow the country's top health officials to appear on the network https://t.co/Ds0f2oVw1A
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) April 9, 2020
On one hand, this should please CNN. The network had gone out of its way to attempt discrediting Dr. Deborah Birx, following her making a single complimentary comment about President Trump. They, and other members of the press, have also attempted to drive a wedge between Dr. Fauci and Trump. As for the administration, they too have every reason to avoid CNN, as the network has displayed itself as an unserious outlet for information on the viral outbreak.
While leveling charges at President Trump as delivering misinformation, while also working to discredit the career accomplishments of the medical team on the task force, CNN has shown it has a rather curious standard by which it measures its serious pandemic experts. Just days before former Clinton operative and CNN attack dog, Joe Lockhart, was trying to paint Dr. Birx as inept the network spoke with a pandemic expert of its own — actor Sean Penn.
THE PRESS: ''Dr. Birx is no one we can trust on the matter of how to deal with this coronavirus outbreak any longer!''
THE PRESS: ''Next on the air with us to discuss all of the needed steps to take in this pandemic, star of ''The Angry Birds Movie''… pic.twitter.com/zu7csaUh9h
— Brad Slager – In An Augur Roll (@MartiniShark) March 29, 2020
This is hardly a case of using an isolated example to dunk on the network. Anderson Cooper on his ‘’360’’ program spoke with another perceived expert on the matter of this viral outbreak. He interviewed Scott Burns, the scriptwriter for the motion picture starring Gwenyth Paltrow and Matt Damon, ‘’Contagion’’. Yes, seriously. And then on this past Thursday CNN held a town hall concerning the viral crisis. The super-serious voice of authority they spoke with was…NBA star Magic Johnson.
It is this level of unserious news gathering, combined with the unprofessional antics of Jim Acosta at the task force briefings that has pummeled CNN in the eyes of viewers. With a mounting number of people forced home, many networks have experienced a surge in viewership. Fox News recently posted all-time high record ratings. The viewer numbers for the entire first quarter recently came in, and CNN had none of its shows register in the top-20.
The highest rated of CNN’s offerings is ‘’The Lead’’, with Jake Tapper, found at #22. His earlier time slot may actually have been aided by the high interest in the White House briefings. Now that his network is refusing to show these any longer it will be interesting to see how much of his already wan audience fled to go see the briefings elsewhere.
