RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Trump calls it the “fake news.” I’ve tried to steer mostly clear of that term, but it just gets harder and harder. You keep thinking that it must be possible to turn to some newspaper or TV news channel for just some basic information on what is going on in the world. But it turns out that the desperate effort to come up with something, anything that will defeat the Republicans or the President requires distorting or suppressing even the most basic facts of what is happening.

There were three years of the Russia, Russia, Russia collusion hoax. Has any media outlet that promoted that fraud ever issued any sort of apology or correction? If so, I have never seen it. Ditto for the Ukraine “quid pro quo” that wasn’t. Just this past weekend, Trump gave what I thought was a very decent and unifying patriotic speech at Mt. Rushmore. Here is the text. For every major left-wing media outlet, it was “dark” and “divisive.” Try reading the text and see if you can find that. Could they really think that nobody would read the text?

But then, the significance of Trump’s speech is a matter of opinion. Let’s consider a matter much closer to simple fact: the number of daily cases and deaths from the Covid-19 virus in the U.S. Figures are reported daily, with charts going back to February, at various places, including a site called Worldometers that I have frequently linked. While there are reasons (that I have discussed in several posts) to think that these data might not be fully accurate, they are still the basic data that we all are working with.

At the end of the day on Saturday July 4, the Worldometers site, without fanfare, added to its charts the figures for that day. It turned out that the number of daily deaths in the U.S., which had been declining quite steadily since hitting a peak of 2,749 on April 21, fell on July 4 to just 254 — the lowest number of daily deaths since the pandemic first started taking hold in March. Here is the Worldometers chart for deaths in the U.S. as of July 4:

Perhaps to you that might seem to be news worth reporting, both the new low of daily deaths and also the steady downward trend. But then, you are not one of the editors of the New York Times.

On Sunday July 5, the lead headline in the print edition of the New York Times was “Virus Inundates Texas.” In case you might think not to believe me, here is a screenshot of the front page of that newspaper. Two different stories appear under that headline. But the basic angle is that cases of the virus are surging in Texas, and it’s all the fault of Republican officeholders and redneck Texans who refuse to listen to the sage advice of true health experts:

[F]or many conservatives, even those with the virus now at their door, the resurgence has not changed opinions so much as hardened them. For those Texans, trust in government is gone, if it was there to begin with, and that includes some of the state’s top leaders. On Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas declared himself tired of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor. “I don’t need his advice anymore,” Mr. Patrick said.

We are taken to a restaurant in Lubbock, where a large group of 18 Texans sits around some outdoor tables:

None in the 18-person group, which squeezed around several outside tables, wore masks or made an attempt to stay distant. “This is the first time we’ve met each other and we don’t care,” said Mr. Stewart’s wife, Tamera, adding that other people might take precautions when they are together and stay far apart. “Texas has all kinds. But we’re done with all that.”

Obviously, these are ignorant rubes. Both of the two stories emphasize data on numbers of new cases in Texas, which show substantial increases in the past several weeks. But are those serious cases, or merely a reflection of greatly increased testing identifying large numbers of low-symptomatic or asymptomatic cases among young people, unlikely to result in serious illness let alone death. This might be an important issue worth discussing, but unfortunately it might undermine the narrative. The subject is not discussed. Try to find in either article any mention that the number of deaths continues to remain at low levels. Of the two stories aggregating thousands of words between them, one does not mention that subject at all. The other contains this in its 14th paragraph (appearing well after the continuation of the piece onto an interior page):

But so far the death toll has not climbed much in Texas or other parts of the South and West seeing a surge.

That is all on the subject of deaths. There is no mention, for example, that Texas has still not exceeded its peak of daily deaths of 63 previously reached on May 21; or that Texas (with a population of over 29 million) has had only 2,738 recorded deaths, 92 per million population, compared to New York (with a population under 20 million), which has recorded 32,264 deaths, 1,659 per million population, about 18 times the death rate of Texas; or that New York hit a total of over 1000 deaths on the single day of April 17, and had many other days over 900. We just don’t mention those things. After all, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is a hero.

On Sunday, July 5 the U.S. daily death toll dropped down another few ticks to 251. I can’t seem to find any mention of that in today’s New York Times, whether print or online. Perhaps a reader can point me to it.

Maybe the number of deaths is about to soar suddenly in states like Texas, Florida and Georgia, led by Republican governors and lacking the severe lockdowns that have characterized the high-death-rate blue states. I’ll bet against it, but I can’t preclude it. However, what I can say with complete confidence is that when the deaths don’t come in those states, there will be no apology or correction from the New York Times or any other media outlet that is pushing this “inundation” narrative. They will just stop mentioning the whole subject, and move on to the next fake and/or distorted story line. No one will hold them accountable.