by Brian C. Joondeph, MD
American Thinker
Fox News, and other cable networks, run a COVID death count ticker on the side or bottom of the television screen just as they show the major stock indices during the business day. Why are they so obsessed with deaths from the Chinese virus?
Most peoples’ moods are already melancholic over the unending economic shutdown, along with social distancing, masks, and restrictions on movement and assembly not normally seen in free societies. Why don’t news networks show a tally of recovered patients rather than deaths?
Aside from the morbid, “If it bleeds, it leads” mantra that guides much news reporting, the media wants to pin each death on the tail of President Trump. Twitter has a #TrumpDeathCount hashtag to blame every single death on the president, the more the merrier. This is ahead of the fall presidential campaign where Democrats will attempt to blame the entire Wuhan virus mess on Trump, from the economic devastation to the total number of deaths.