This Is Why No One Trusts the Media

 

While I’m drinking my coconut and vanilla tea this morning, I typed “Kentucky COVID tests” into my browser and here’s what I got:

What you see are three nearly identical headlines pushing the exact same narrative on the exact same day. When you actually click on the articles, there’s not a shred of proof that: 1) any of the protesters are infected with COVID-19, or 2) they infected anyone else with COVID-19.

Instead, you get hearsay and innuendo posing as news. From the International Business Times:

“The question that some are asking: Are the spike in cases and the protests connected in any way? [. . .] An actual link tying the protesters to the following spike would support those who fear easing the pandemic prevention measures too early might cause more outbreaks or a second wave of infections to areas hit hard by the initial wave. Gov. Beshear, a Democrat, appears to be one of several governors who take this view.”

Note that the author is actually rooting for the protesters to be infected. And who are the “some” that are asking?

From Yahoo News:

“Now, it seems that those protests, which appear to lack social distancing efforts, may have lead to a projected increase in COVID-19 cases.”

Again, there is no evidence that this is the case. This is simply blind accusation bordering on slander.

None of the stories bother to mention that Kentucky has had a surge in testing since the protest, which most likely led to the sudden increase in cases. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Kentucky has been lagging behind other states on the amounts of tests made available to citizens. Only in the wake of protests did Gov. Beshear bother to push for more testing. Perhaps those headlines should have said something like: “Beshear increases the amount of testing in an effort to smear protesters.”

That at least has the ring of honesty.

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  1. Samuel Block Support
    Samuel Block
    @SamuelBlock

    Wasn’t the protest just a week ago? Are they testing people who are asymptomatic now? 

    I saw Beshear on MSNBC the other day, (I have the good fortune of being quarantined at a house with a relative who watches the news all day!) and, perhaps naturally, he was quite dismissive of the plaintiff’s obvious case. 

    His words were to the effect of: “why are we talking about this one group who didn’t follow the rules? Everybody else did the right thing.” By that he means, did what Beshear told them to do. 

     

    • #1
  2. James Gawron Inactive
    James Gawron
    @JamesGawron

    Brandon,

    Really this lying by the media is no different than the lying the media has been doing all along. However, because lives depend on the flow of good information right now (both physically and economically) we are unconsciously assuming that the media will behave better. Forget it. These are spoiled banal lazy lying jerks. They aren’t going to change their stripes for the pandemic because they can’t.

    Brainless, spineless, and corrupt, the media continues on its clueless way.

     Regards,

    Jim

    • #2
  3. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    M. Brandon Godbey: While I’m drinking my coconut and vanilla tea this morning,

    I don’t know if I can accept you as a conservative if you drink such girly tea. 

    • #3
  4. M. Brandon Godbey Member
    M. Brandon Godbey
    @Brandon

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    M. Brandon Godbey: While I’m drinking my coconut and vanilla tea this morning,

    I don’t know if I can accept you as a conservative if you drink such girly tea.

     

    In the mornings I am a consumer of tea or coffee, depending on my mood, while I teach poetry and rhetoric to teenagers.  

    By evening I am digging post holes on the farm and feeding horses.

    By night I’m writing political posts on Ricochet from a conservatarian point of view. 

    Do I contradict myself?
    Very well then I contradict myself,
    (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

    • #4
  5. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    I saw the same kind of garbage in our local paper (although it was probably from AP) . The headline said something like, “City Commissioners choose science over politics.” In reading their statements, they basically repeated what we’ve hard from Trump and his doctors. And said nothing about politics. Finding these lies has become a morning ritual of my husband’s, and then he passes it on to me. It’s unconscionable.

    • #5
  6. Jager Coolidge
    Jager
    @Jager

    The new statement from the Governor is that Kentucky has likely plateaued.

    https://www.kentucky.com/news/coronavirus/article242179936.html  

    • #6
  7. Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. Coolidge
    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr.
    @BartholomewXerxesOgilvieJr

    M. Brandon Godbey:

    From Yahoo News:

    “Now, it seems that those protests, which appear to lack social distancing efforts, may have lead to a projected increase in COVID-19 cases.”

    May have led (past tense) to a projected increase? In other words, the protests have already caused something that hasn’t happened yet?

    • #7
  8. Weeping Inactive
    Weeping
    @Weeping

    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. (View Comment):

    M. Brandon Godbey:

    From Yahoo News:

    “Now, it seems that those protests, which appear to lack social distancing efforts, may have lead to a projected increase in COVID-19 cases.”

    May have led (past tense) to a projected increase? In other words, the protests have already caused something that hasn’t happened yet?

    Exactly what I wondered when I read that sentence. 

    • #8
  9. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    This was not just sloppy writing.  The wording of the headlines makes it clear that the intent was to lead readers to draw an unproven connection between any “spike” and the protests.  Disgusting.

    • #9
  10. M. Brandon Godbey Member
    M. Brandon Godbey
    @Brandon

    Bartholomew Xerxes Ogilvie, Jr. (View Comment):

    M. Brandon Godbey:

    From Yahoo News:

    “Now, it seems that those protests, which appear to lack social distancing efforts, may have lead to a projected increase in COVID-19 cases.”

    May have led (past tense) to a projected increase? In other words, the protests have already caused something that hasn’t happened yet?

    Nice catch.  It’s sooooo painfully obvious that the author wants to write something like “These protesters are causing people to die; it just hasn’t happened yet!”  

    • #10
  11. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Similar:

    Remember how two weeks ago the election in Wisconsin was going to kill everyone?

    https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/04/22/covid-19-hasnt-spiked-after-wisconsin-election-experts-urge-caution/2997394001/

    Two weeks after Wisconsin’s chaotic spring election, the number of COVID-19 cases has not shown a marked increase as some had warned, but experts say there are still too many unknown factors to conclude if in-person voting affected the illness’ spread.

    Epidemiologists and infectious disease experts said Tuesday there has been a slight increase in cases in recent days, but the numbers have ebbed and flowed a bit over time and any change may have been caused by factors other than the election.

    • #11
  12. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    Everyday I see a corporate media article telling me there is no way that Wuhan Flu virus was engineered in a lab.  This stories are based on some random doctors opinion based on their feelings.  Who is pushing these articles?  The more of these I see, the more suspicious I get. 

    • #12
  13. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    James Gawron (View Comment):

    Brandon,

    Really this lying by the media is no different than the lying the media has been doing all along. However, because lives depend on the flow of good information right now (both physically and economically) we are unconsciously assuming that the media will behave better. Forget it. These are spoiled banal lazy lying jerks. They aren’t going to change their stripes for the pandemic because they can’t.

    Brainless, spineless, and corrupt, the media continues on its clueless way.

    Regards,

    Jim

    I’ve seen enough media coverage on matters of life and death (but fewer deaths) in which the media demonstrated a preference for narrative over useful information that I harbored no illusions that in a pandemic the media would perform better. Nonetheless in this pandemic the media has sunk even lower than I thought probable.

    • #13
  14. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Everyday I see a corporate media article telling me there is no way that Wuhan Flu virus was engineered in a lab. This stories are based on some random doctors opinion based on their feelings. Who is pushing these articles? The more of these I see, the more suspicious I get.

    Tom Cotton had an op-ed in the WSJ on his belief that there is plenty of evidence that it is likely it came out of a lab, and not from the market. Conclusive, no, but highly suspicious.

    • #14
  15. Mark Hunter Inactive
    Mark Hunter
    @Jude

    Gov. Beshear is a sanctimonious twit. In March he poor mouthed Tennessee, telling people in Kentucky that they should not travel there because there was no social distancing and we had a higher incidence of Covid19. Well, you’re not going to show a high incidence of a disease that you purposefully avoid diagnosing. Gov. Lee (TN) was aggressive in testing. 

    There is room for debate on the timing of reopening, but we get precious little of that. Instead it is the same old demagoguery. 

    • #15
  16. Doctor Robert Member
    Doctor Robert
    @DoctorRobert

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    Everyday I see a corporate media article telling me there is no way that Wuhan Flu virus was engineered in a lab. This stories are based on some random doctors opinion based on their feelings. Who is pushing these articles? The more of these I see, the more suspicious I get.

    Two weeks ago and a week ago I posted peer reviewed science articles authored by Chinese virologists then in Australia, now working at Wuhan, showing that they had learned to modify the viral genomes of bat Covid viruses to increase binding to the ACE receptor, as in human lung cells.  That is to say, they learned how to weaponize the viruses, moved to a new lab in China and then the virus mysteriously appeared in the same mother loving city.

    This was deliberate, this is biological warfare and the Chinese are winning, while we refuse to put two and two together.

    Nuke Wuhan.  It won’t solve the crisis but would be a good first step to preventing another.

    • #16
  17. Ray Kujawa Coolidge
    Ray Kujawa
    @RayKujawa

    As of April 21 numbers on Worldometer, Kentucky has 719 cases per million, which is 40th out of the 50 states.

    • #17
  18. Ray Kujawa Coolidge
    Ray Kujawa
    @RayKujawa

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):
    Nuke Wuhan. It won’t solve the crisis but would be a good first step to preventing another.

    Not only will it make us feel better, according to a sensitive unclassified but nevertheless unreleased report in the CDC, viruses are destroyed by heat and light.

    How’s the weather in Kentucky?

    • #18
  19. M. Brandon Godbey Member
    M. Brandon Godbey
    @Brandon

    Ray Kujawa (View Comment):

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):
    Nuke Wuhan. It won’t solve the crisis but would be a good first step to preventing another.

    Not only will it make us feel better, according to a sensitive unclassified but nevertheless unreleased report in the CDC, viruses are destroyed by heat and light.

    How’s the weather in Kentucky?

    Beautiful.  Sunny and 67 degrees.  Perfect farm work weather.  

    • #19
  20. M. Brandon Godbey Member
    M. Brandon Godbey
    @Brandon

    Mark Hunter (View Comment):

    Gov. Beshear is a sanctimonious twit. In March he poor mouthed Tennessee, telling people in Kentucky that they should not travel there because there was no social distancing and we had a higher incidence of Covid19. Well, you’re not going to show a high incidence of a disease that you purposefully avoid diagnosing. Gov. Lee (TN) was aggressive in testing.

    There is room for debate on the timing of reopening, but we get precious little of that. Instead it is the same old demagoguery.

     

    I think that, when this is all over, Kentucky is primed for an investigation into the testing practices of the Beshear administration.  It’s fairly evident that early in the process, when Beshear wanted to use Tennessee as a foil, the state made it damn near impossible to get a test.  Beshear would then parlay those low test numbers into positive press coverage.  Suddenly, when it suited the “protesters are bad” narrative, a glut of people are tested in Kentucky.  The guy played life and death games with the citizens of Kentucky for the sake of his approval rating.  Repugnant.   

    • #20
  21. Quinnie Member
    Quinnie
    @Quinnie

    I recently moved to Louisville, Ky from New Jersey.   I feel a greater sense of freedom in this state, but have been disheartened by this state’s response to the virus.   Governor Beshear is a coward who is now hiding behind a group of midwestern Governors and whatever they decide about opening their states.   The Mayor of Louisville is even worse.  He is of the “if it saves one life, it will all be worth it” mindset.   The local paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal is so in the tank for the democrats it is hard to stomach their reporting.   Overall, a very sad state of affairs in a flyover state.

    • #21
  22. ToryWarWriter Coolidge
    ToryWarWriter
    @ToryWarWriter

    Every day my facebook has yet another person complaining about all those violating quarantine.

     

    I just shrug my shoulders.

    • #22
  23. Rodin Member
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):

    Every day my facebook has yet another person complaining about all those violating quarantine.

     

    I just shrug my shoulders.

    We’re just a million shrugs away from freedom.

    • #23
  24. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    M. Brandon Godbey: While I’m drinking my coconut and vanilla tea this morning,

    I don’t know if I can accept you as a conservative if you drink such girly tea.

    It’s only girly if he holds his little finger out while sipping . . .

    • #24
  25. Ralphie Inactive
    Ralphie
    @Ralphie

    ToryWarWriter (View Comment):

    Every day my facebook has yet another person complaining about all those violating quarantine.

     

    I just shrug my shoulders.

    The time for protesting is when there is something to protest about. It is good, right and just, to peaceably protest without fear of retribution.  The right to assembly is important to redress wrongs. I might be at one of these if this goes on much longer.

    Most anti war protesters do so during a war. 

    • #25
  26. Cal Lawton Inactive
    Cal Lawton
    @CalLawton

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):
    Nuke Wuhan. It won’t solve the crisis but would be a good first step to preventing another.

    Just to be sure.

    • #26
  27. Gazpacho Grande' Coolidge
    Gazpacho Grande'
    @ChrisCampion

    Cal Lawton (View Comment):

    Doctor Robert (View Comment):
    Nuke Wuhan. It won’t solve the crisis but would be a good first step to preventing another.

    Just to be sure.

    See the source image

    • #27
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