Jenin Younes on media coverage of the coronavirus

[T]he media’s dereliction of duty is beyond evident.  As [Karina] Reiss and [Sucharit] Bhakdi observe, broadcasters and the press became “servile mouthpieces of the government” and never “critically questioned” the “disturbing images and frightening numbers."  Incidentally, a letter recently published by 200 Belgian scientists similarly criticized the media: “[t]he relentless bombardment of numbers, unleashed on the population day after day, hour after hour, without indicating those numbers, without comparing them to flu deaths in other years, without comparing them with deaths from other causes, has induced a true psychosis of fear in the population.  This is not information, but manipulation.” 

As an avid consumer of the New York Times, the New Yorker, and NPR, I can attest to the media having operated no differently in the United States.  Apart from a few pieces in early March that questioned the wisdom of the course we had set upon, there was no serious discussion and no debate, at least in the left-leaning media, and anyone who dissented from the prevailing view was and continues to be dismissed as stupid or selfish.  Early on, and without any nuanced analysis, Sweden was deemed a failure.  The public has been beset by such terror, driven by anecdotes often presented without context, that it has become virtually impossible to dispel these many misconceptions using facts, figures, and logic.

~ Jenin Younes, "Disease Panic vs. Medical Reality," AIER.org, September 28, 2020