A reporter for the New York Times called for the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to resign during a segment Tuesday on CNN, causing his employer to say he “went too far.”
CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour spoke with the NYT’s science and health reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. about the novel coronavirus response in America compared to around the world. McNeil said America “completely blew” the first two months of responding to the virus.
McNeil called the beginning two months of America’s response “a headless chicken phase” and compared the U.S. to China and Germany. The NYT reporter then pointed to CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield’s apparent failing of Americans and blamed what he said was a poor response from America on Redfield’s “incompetent leadership.”
The NYT responded in a statement to Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple about the biased commentary.
“In an interview with Christiane Amanpour today, Donald McNeil, Jr. went too far in expressing his personal views,” the NYT said in the statement. “His editors have discussed the issue with him to reiterate that his job is to report the facts and not to offer his own opinions. We are confident that his reporting on science and medicine for The Times has been scrupulously fair and accurate.”
In a statement, The New York Times told me that McNeil had gone “too far in expressing his personal views.” But it appears to indicate that a talk was the extent of it. pic.twitter.com/tZDXEXezLa
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) May 12, 2020
McNeil cited various phone calls with China’s CDC in January regarding the novel coronavirus as a reason for Redfield to resign while talking on CNN.
“The head of China’s CDC was on the phone with Robert Redfield on January 1, again on January 8 and the two agencies were talking on January 19,” McNeil said on CNN. “The Chinese had a test on January 13. The Germans had a test on January 16. We fiddled around for two months, we had a test on March 5 and it didn’t work We didn’t have 10,000 people tested until March 15, so we’ve lost two months there.”
“And that was because of incompetent leadership at the CDC, I’m sorry to say. It’s a great agency, but it’s incompetently led, and I think Dr Redfield should resign.” (RELATED: CNN Anchor Describes Bin Laden’s Death As A ‘Nothing Burger’ Compared To Soleimani Killing)
WATCH:
This appears to be an important coronavirus media moment: A reporter on the news side of @nytimes saying that the CDC chief should resign. 1/ https://t.co/hIrkCwQMM3
— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) May 12, 2020
McNeil also alleged that “the real coverup was the person in this country who was saying … this is not an important virus.”
The NYT reporter began his speech by called America’s version of a lockdown “a joke” compared to places like China and Italy.
Redfield is currently self-quarantining after being exposed to someone at the White House who tested positive for the novel coronavirus, CNN reported.
