I've been critical of journalists for corona virus coverage and I probably need more nuance here. First, I love journalists. I really do. They are great people to spend time. Dinner. Drinks. Great stories. I don't want this to be personal. This is a professional issue 1/n
Second, I fully understand and appreciate the pressures they work under to get stories out. It can't be perfect and I'm not expecting perfect or even great foresight. That's not the issue. 2/n
Third, the issues are (from where I stand) come down to managerial issues of how media has opted to cover Corona. It started with the all the corona is no big deal coverage they started with in January. This morphed into travel restrictions and face mask are either racist 3/n
Or pointless. This morphed into nobody is moving fast enough which morphed into competing who could splash the biggest number of forecast dead on the front page with no regard for Amy idea of what went into those forecasts. If major media wants to complain about how Corona 4/n
Progressed, the first thing it should do is look in the mirror. Fourth, there next major thing is coverage consisted of little more than political TMZ that mentions science stuff from time to time. I can literally count there number of detailed pieces that get into nitty 5/n
Gritty issues of what's going on with one maybe two hands. This gets to the next issue. Fifth, major outlets are totally out of their depth covering these issues. I mean you have the Broadway musical guy writing stories about epidemiological models? This isn't unbiased fact 6/n
Discovery and reporting to educate the public, this is disease porn touting models that we knew were bad and subsequently collapsed mixed with political gossip from a hospital. A focus on facts and understanding the actual issues is non-existent. This leads to the last issue 7/n
I have never seen an issue where journalists are so openly advocating positions with zero regards for their supposed tenants of reporting facts and what is happening. When you advocate for positions, refuse to consider alternative positions, and make yourself part of the 8/n
Story, you lose the credibility you hope to have by supposedly being purveyors of truth that can't be swayed. You are now engaging in position advocacy. If you want to engage in position advocacy, you can no be considered unbiased honest fact presenters. You cannot have it 9/n
Both ways. I respect and like journalists but the corona coverage had not been a shining hour for journalism as a profession. Done
