Editorial

Media Talking Heads Clearly Didn’t Get The WH Memo To Dial Down The COVID Fear Porn

Melbourne COVID-19 Hotspot Suburbs In Lockdown Following Rise In Community Coronavirus Transmissions

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Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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White House COVID-19 response team member Ben Wakana chastised both The New York Times and The Washington Post for stoking fear with misleading headlines.

Wakana criticized the NYT for a story citing an internal CDC memo as saying, “The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated.”

Wakana’s argument with WaPo was over a story about the outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where a large percentage of the people infected were vaccinated.

“Completely irresponsible,” he tweeted. “[Three] days ago the CDC made clear that vaccinated individuals represent a VERY SMALL amount of transmission occurring around the country. Virtually all hospitalizations and deaths continue to be among the unvaccinated. Unreal to not put that in context.”

CNN anchor Brian Stelter appeared to be one of the few to take Wakana’s message to heart, saying on Sunday’s broadcast of “Reliable Sources” that media should take responsibility for the “sensationalist” headlines — or even draw a line to show that the scary headlines were only accurate for those who remained unvaccinated.

But still, multiple outlets and pundits have continued to peddle sensational headlines that stoked fear and reminded people that there was still the potential for the delta variant to spread or new variants to develop. (RELATED: Fauci Stokes Pandemic Fears Despite Plummeting Cases And Deaths)

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has also been a popular target because despite the rise in novel coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, he has refused to implement mask mandates or allow cities or public schools to do so.

And to say that the fear porn has been effective would be an understatement. Actress Jennifer Aniston said that she had gone so far as to cut people out of her life if they refused to get the vaccine or refused to disclose whether to not they had gotten it.

But the biggest tell was a recent poll that presented people with just two choices: the worst of the pandemic is in the past, or the worst of the pandemic is yet to come.

The Harris poll published by Axios showed that as of July, 54% of Americans believed the worst was yet to come and just 46% believed the worst was in the past — in spite of the fact that 70% of adults in the U.S. had received at least one dose of one of the coronavirus vaccine by the end of the month.