Governor Cuomo Wins an Emmy as His Health Department Concealed the True Number of New York Nursing Home Residents Who Perished From COVID-19

 

    Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has been lauded by many in the media for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis in his state. This perhaps best culminating in his winning of an International Emmy for “his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world.” However, this rise to the national spotlight has not been without its criticisms. Many of which stemmed from Governor Cuomo’s March 25^th directive to allow COVID-19 positive nursing home residents back into nursing homes after they had been hospitalized. The state Health Department reports “that approximately 6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to facilities between March 25, 2020 and May 8, 2020” after which the March 25^th directive was rescinded. The toll this potentially had on nursing home deaths had not been totally clear until recently, when the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, released a report detailing the drastic miss counting of nursing home deaths across the State of New York.

    According to James’s report, which surveyed about 10 percent of nursing homes across the State of New York, “COVID-19 resident deaths associated with nursing homes in New York state appear to be undercounted by DOH by approximately 50 percent.” The report details that this was a result of the New York Health Department failing to count nursing home residents who were transferred to a hospital before their death in the total count of nursing home deaths. While this re-categorizing of deaths does not alter the total death count in New York which is nearing 43,000, the most in the United States, it does add over 3,800 deaths to the total number of nursing home deaths making it now 12,743. The New York Health Department has disputed some of the conclusions drawn by James’s report highlighting the fact that the report fails to directly link the March 25^th policy to an increase in nursing home deaths, however, the report does state that “over 4,000 nursing home deaths occurred after the issuance of the March 25 guidance. While additional data and analysis would be required to ascertain the effect of such admissions in individual facilities, these admissions may have contributed to increased risk of nursing home resident infection, and subsequent fatalities.” Furthermore, the report notes that staffing issues and failures to adhere to protocols for controlling the spread of COVID-19 around the facilities possibly contributed to the high numbers of deaths in these facilities.

    Perhaps the media’s praise for Governor Cuomo was a touch premature considering the state-wide scandal that is now breaking into the daylight. Governor Cuomo may also be a victim of the fact that Donald Trump is no longer sucking all the proverbial air out of the room giving the media more time to cast a critical eye on political figures around the country. Nevertheless, it remains a tragic reality that Cuomo’s administration dropped the ball in its efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 and protect the most vulnerable populations. It remains to be seen whether or not this will spell the demise of Governor Cuomo’s once promising political career. There have already been calls for the resignation of New York’s health commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. It will be interesting to see whether these are soon directed to Governor Cuomo as well.  

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Trust in Mainstream Media Slides into the Gutter as They Embrace the Biden Administration with Open Arms

 

    As the news media in the United States welcomes the new Biden administration, America’s trust in news media dops precipitously. According to the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer survey, 59 percent of respondents agreed that journalist purposely say things that are false or misleading in order to deceive people. Furthermore, the survey found that trust in traditional media has fallen eight points to a low of 53 percent. To add insult to injury Edelman did a “Post-U.S Election Flash Poll” and found a massive gap in trust between Biden and Trump voters with 57 percent of Biden voters trusting the media versus a mere 18 percent of Trump voters. Even more concerning is that this shows a 15-point decline since the election among Trump voters. As this all this happens in the background, the news media gleefully welcomes the Biden administration. Perhaps somewhat too gleefully as writer Jack Shafer for Politico pointed out in his January 21^st article where he details some of the rather embarrassing and far too common displays of biased fawning by the mainstream media during Biden’s inauguration. It is difficult to see how the media’s treatment of Trump versus their treatment of Biden on January 20^th and for the past year is not exacerbating the issue. Examples like this are not difficult to make and illustrate this point well. Combining this with Trump’s anti mainstream media rhetoric since the election, it is no wonder trust in the news media seems to be hitting an all time low.

    Furthermore, the news media is not being shy about their intentions to continue their glowing reviews of the Biden administration. Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for The Washington Post, published an insightful article on January 21^st about this very topic. Sullivan cautions the media to not become too adversarial against the Biden administration. She elaborates that it is tempting to do in order to seem as though the news media is providing balanced news coverage, but giving platform to “reality-denying” voices like senator “Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) or Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)” is a bridge too far for Sullivan. Sullivan states there should be a distinction drawn between “holding power to account and grandstanding.” It is important to consider here that Sullivan considers the “the vast and shameful overplaying of the Hillary Clinton email scandal during the 2016 campaign” to be grandstanding. If the warning by Sullivan is heeded by the news media, which seems already to be the case, it is doubtful that the news media is going to be able to gain back much ground with the half of the country that voted for Donald Trump. There is no issue with holding power to account and scrutinizing every aspect of a presidential administration or any other source of power whether political or private. However, it is an issue when biased reporting and deliberately gentle coverage is encouraged to replace the massive media onslaught of the past four years. The further public trust of media slips into oblivion the harder it is going to become to bring the U.S back together and repair the deep divisions that persist.

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Big Tech Wielding a Double-Edged Sword

 

    

    There has been much tumult since the January 6^th Capitol Hill riot involving extreme Trump supporters storming the United States Capitol building in attempt to prevent the House of Representative and Senate from counting the electoral votes cast in the most recent presidential election. Backlash has been quick and harsh against the rioters and President Trump’s irresponsible rhetoric, which many argue helped incite the violence. President Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter as these social media companies vowed to more closely monitor and scrutinize activity from potentially radicalized right wing individuals and organizations. The ire of the news media and tech companies then quickly turned to the social media app Parler. Parler is accused of allowing hate speech and extremist content to go unregulated as well as providing a platform on which the Capitol Hill protest were organized. Given these allegations Google and Apple removed the app from their stores and Amazon decided to pull its web services from Parler which effectively disabled the ability to use the app for the time being. Conservatives and more left leaning organizations alike have been voicing concern over these actions as only an opportunistic and dangerous crackdown against conservative speech and representation on Twitter and Facebook as well as on alternative platforms.

However, big techs justification for the crackdown on Parler seems to already be turning into a double-edged sword. Evidence has emerged that Facebook, Facebook run Instagram, and Twitter were widely used to organize and promote the January 6^th Capitol Hill protest as well as spread false information about the presidential election. By big tech’s own standard, should not these platforms also face harsh punishment like the removal of their web services and their apps from Apple and Google’s app stores? If the standard that any platform credibly accused of hosting content which may be considered extreme or radical in nature should face retribution and destruction, then this standard should also be upheld for bigger platforms as well. Despite the logical progression of this standard, this will never be upheld in realty. Big tech is quick to squelch those that present a threat to their control over the social media and news sphere, but when they turn out to also be guilty of the same actions as those which they target for destruction, suddenly it is a time for careful reflection and deference for big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter. This type of double standard will only add fuel to an already raging fire which is American public discourse. It is almost as though the biased and arbitrary picking and choosing of which individuals and groups are allowed to have a voice in the public square is leaving some feeling disillusioned and angry about what is perceived as a coordinated crackdown on certain viewpoints. The full ramifications of big tech’s actions remain to be seen. Time will tell what effects these actions have on the public discourse, political division, and freedom of speech and expression in the United States.

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