Thread by @DrewHolden360

New thread.

There seems to be a collective forgetting among the media when it comes to early coronavirus coverage. I dove down the memoryhole for what happened.

They weren’t raising alarms. No one was. Links & screenshots below, along w/ some thoughts on why not.

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1255175620453113859

To start, @NYTimes on 1/23 begged the question of whether COVID could be as bad as the 2003 SARS outbreak, ending w/ a quote from the US Chamber of Comm in HK Pres saying “it’s too early to panic."

COVID has killed 265x the # of ppl SARS did (& counting) nytimes.com/2020/01/23/wor…

Similarly, on 1/21, @CNBC quoted @WHO's advice that a travel ban was unnecessary. They compared the outbreak to SARS, but said that this time "China has moved more rapidly" ending w/ an expert saying "the impact this time should be less than that of SARS" cnbc.com/2020/01/21/chi…

This opening from a 1/24 piece from @latimes staff writer @Emily_Baum speaks for itself, I think. latimes.com/science/story/…

Worth pointing out here that our @CDCgov
was taking a similar, muted response, even as more American's displayed concerns, as reported by @MorningConsult on 1/27. morningconsult.com/2020/01/27/eve…

My 2-cents is that this reporting from @RonaldBailey of @reason, also on 1/27, strikes the right note (with normal hindsight caution). It provided the available evidence but hesitated to draw any conclusions more than "we'll see" given the paucity of info. reason.com/2020/01/27/how…

Back to the not-so-good. @NPR quoted an expert on 1/25 saying that "[t]he general public should not worry at this time" about coronavirus. This expert compared the outbreak to the seasonal flu: npr.org/sections/goats…

This sentiment re: seasonal flu v. COVID - which has oft been attributed to conservatives - was broadly common. Here's an example from @LizSzabo, originally for @KHNews but picked up by @USATODAY, @Salon & others, calling season flu "far deadlier": usatoday.com/story/news/hea…

@washingtonpost on 1/27 quoted the head of Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity (
@Columbia_CII) W. Ian Lipkin as saying "it is very unlikely that this will ever reach the level that we annually lose to flu." washingtonpost.com/world/coronavi…

Given risk tolerances & uncertainty, the stock market was really the first indicator to get this one right. That isn't a critique of the media - markets are more jittery & swing far more wildly than media coverage should to - but an interesting fact. nymag.com/intelligencer/…

By my count, @Slate's coverage was particularly egregious given the lack of info. On 1/24 (updated 1/27) @shanpalus advised that it wasn't time to worry &that the outbreak starting in China was "sort of" random. Not sure how well that'll hold up. slate.com/technology/202…

This reporting from @USATODAY on 1/22 - also w/ comparisons to the seasonal flu - resonates with me as emblematic of coverage at the time.

I'm not saying that, given the circumstances @ the time, this was unreasonable, but far from raising the alarm. usatoday.com/story/news/hea…

No doubt the media getting this wrong was largely a result of everyone else also getting this wrong. I won't pretend to know enough about the models to know if this conf. level was reasonable, but obv the conclusion was wrong.

Here's Dr. Fauci on 1/26: thehill.com/homenews/sunda…

This from @politico also seems well-measured to me, if ultimately inadequate given (what I would call) unforeseeable circumstances for a reporter at the time.
@ddiamond faithfully relays the experts but avoids drawing sweeping conclusions: politico.com/newsletters/po…

There were a lot of opinion pieces that look bad in retrospect. I won't include all of them here, but this one, from @DrMarcSiegel for @thehill on 1/23, is a good example of how well-respected medical professionals missed. Here's the opening line: thehill.com/opinion/health…

But the most fundamental issue was trusting China. This, from @juliaholli for @CNN, captures the spirit well: praising China for their handling of the virus, learning from the mistakes of SARS, etc. It gives the image of a new, good-global-citizen China.
cnn.com/2020/01/24/asi…

There's been a lot of this sentiment, early on & since. A few examples:

@USATODAY: usatoday.com/story/news/wor…
@businessinsider: businessinsider.com/chinas-coronav…
more @CNN: cnn.com/2020/03/10/asi…
@nature: nature.com/articles/d4158…

The only problem is that this mentality has been thoroughly debunked by both @WSJ and @axios. China screwed up enormously and lied early on. Too many US outlets took them at face-value.

Links to both are below.
WSJ: wsj.com/articles/how-i…
Axios: axios.com/timeline-the-e…

So I guess my takeaways are:

1) Yes, the media & experts were wrong about COVID in the early aughts
2) Given China's lies & forecasting limitations they may have been reasonably wrong &
3) We must stop trusting Chinese propaganda & infusing journalism w. sweeping conjecture

It wouldn’t be right not to also spotlight how terrible @WHO has handled all of this. I’ve got whole threads dedicated to the subject, but here’s just a few w/ time stamps