By Clarence McKee
President Donald Trump calls on a member of
the press during a daily briefing. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
I asked my friend Bryan: "What did you
think of the president's news conference on the virus?"
"I turned it off" he said.
"Why? I asked in surprise.
"Those reporters make my blood
boil," he responded in obvious anger his voice rising.
"They are a disgrace! Most of them don't
really care about me or my family. All they want to do is use the virus to slam
the president with 'gotcha' questions and drive a wedge between him and
his health advisers to get headlines — no matter what he is doing to combat the
pandemic."
Bryan reflects the opinion of many Americans
regarding the media's coverage of the COVID-19 virus as I recently stated in
this space.
What is wrong with today's media, and what
are they doing to deserve such little respect?
Just watch how they perform during the daily
press briefings.
It is clear from their conduct that many in
the White House press corps would be good public relations agents for the
Democrat party — as are many of their organizations!
Many appear to be too young to have had real
lifetime experiences and merit such prestigious positions. Yet, they are all
too ready to besmirch their privileged positions by being arrogant, combative,
hostile and grandstanding practitioners of the "gotcha" politics
Bryan referred to.
Whatever happened to journalists like David
Brinkley of ABC News, Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace of CBS News and Tim
Russert of NBC News whom viewers could trust for truth and objective
journalism?
While press corps reporters are hostile in
their questions to the president, their colleagues have their own bias
— have been rather reluctant to criticize China for expelling members of
their profession from the country.
Today's media seems to be uninterested in how
the communist regime in China mismanaged the containment of a virus that is
killing thousands around the world — and here in their own country.
While many in the media accused the president
of racism when he banned travel from China, they have asked very little about
whether the virus actually started in a market in the Chinese metropolis of
Wuhan.
If Barack Obama had imposed a travel ban on
China, in a similar situation, the media would have applauded him for being
"pro-active and protecting the country!"
Shouldn't it be the American media and media
around the world ferreting out where this plague began?
Thankfully, the Wall Street Journal stepped
up to the plate and told America how the World
Health Organization (WHO) in a January 14 tweet said that
Chinese authorities had found "no clear evidence of human to
human transmission" of the virus.
The WHO is apparently a puppet of the Chinese
government which many in the major media, except for the WSJ, for some reason,
failed to address.
Americans are not as dumb as the major media
thinks and can see right through its politicized charade on news
coverage — especially by the White House Press Corps!
Next, the media and their friends in the
Democrat party will not only accuse the president of racism for criticizing the
WHO, whose Director-General is an Ethiopian; but, most likely will blame him
for the disproportionate number of blacks who are victims of the virus.
Media bias and hypocrisy never seems to end!
Clarence
V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political,
and media relations consulting firm in Florida. He held several positions in
the Reagan administration as well as in the Reagan presidential campaigns. He
is a former co-owner of WTVT-TV in Tampa and former president of the Florida
Association of Broadcasters. Read more of his reports — Go Here Now.
