COVID-19, the Media, and the Adults in the Room

We live in the Information Age. Compared with major health crises in the past, like the 1918 Spanish flu or even the 1957 "Asian flu" (which I had), we are blessed with good access to information. We have the ability to know what is going on, minute-by-minute, case-by-case, death-by-death. We can read analyses of how we got here and what the trajectory and possible endpoint look like. We can see how we stack up compared to other countries fighting the outbreak. This drives our president crazy, as he performs contortions to interpret these charts to make us look "the best."

My husband and I came of age in the golden era of the nightly news. Everyone watched. Everyone had their favorite network anchor. And regardless of which of the three networks you preferred, you watched basically the same version of the facts. There were commentaries with different slants, to be sure, but everyone agreed fundamentally on the facts of the major stories. We still enjoy watching the nightly news, like many in our generation. In this time of crisis, we appreciate the newscasters' efforts to be calm and factual, to provide well-considered analysis, and to give us the opportunity to hear from the experts.

When we listen to the renowned, well-respected public health experts, it has become apparent that they're being asked to play a role they probably never anticipated. In addition to laying out the facts and providing recommendations based on their expert analysis of likely scenarios, they also need to placate a tantrum-prone president. It's obvious that they are choosing their words carefully to avoid "setting him off" and causing him to take more irresponsible actions. They're dealing with him like you would deal with a high-strung recalcitrant teenager. We've watched in horror as the few "grown-ups" in this administration have left or been fired, one by one -- Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, John Kelly, to name just a few. Fingers crossed that these new grown-ups in the room, the public health experts, will be able to navigate the storms of their moody boss and remain effective.

We've also noticed that mainstream media (not Fox news, of course) is limiting their coverage of Trump's press briefings. Some have directly said that his inaccuracies and false claims are just confusing people. I think the media has gradually recognized that they were unintentional accomplices in Trump's election because they broadcast and wrote about every outrageous thing he said and did. In this time of crisis, they've taken that lesson to heart and are focusing on the facts and the genuine experts. The image is from an article on the Washington Post web site that makes recommendations about how the press should handle covering President Trump. To consider limiting coverage of a president because so much of what he says is misleading or dishonest is both unprecedented and necessary.

By contrast, we feel very grateful that in Minnesota we are lead by a whole group of adults-in-the-room, starting with our governor. In his press briefing on Tuesday, when he announced a two-week "stay at home Minnesota" order, he used charts to explain the scenarios and the thought process behind the decision. Not everyone responds to charts and graphs and factual analysis, but no one can doubt our governor's commitment to protecting Minnesotans, even if it costs him the next election. 

We have no idea what the next two months or six months or even eighteen months will look like, but capturing what it looks like and how we feel today seems like a worthwhile exercise.