". . . One is a habitual, even reflexive presentation of claims or statements that a reporter knows are not of equivalent truthfulness, as if they were. (Thus, “false equivalence.”) A stark recent example (of reflexive presentation of claims or statements that a reporter knows are not of equivalent truthfulness,)was an AP story on September 4, with the headline “Dueling Versions of Reality Define 1st Week of Fall Campaign.” It began:
NEW YORK (AP) — On the campaign trail with President Donald Trump, the pandemic is largely over, the economy is roaring back, and murderous mobs are infiltrating America’s suburbs.
With Democrat Joe Biden, the pandemic is raging, the economy isn’t lifting the working class, and ssystemic racism threatens Black lives across America.
The first week of the fall sprint to Election Day crystallized dizzyingly different versions of reality as the Republican incumbent and his Democratic challenger trekked from Washington and Delaware to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and back, each man on an urgent mission to sell his particular message to anxious voters. . . All the conflicting messages carry at least a sliver of truth, some much more than others …
The “some much more than others” phrase is a way to signal what the reporter certainly knows: that Joe Biden’s claims are within the realm of normal political spin and emphasis, while Trump’s are not true. The U.S. is nowhere near the end of its pandemic nightmare; the economy has recovered barely half the jobs lost since February, and worse times may be ahead; the urban crime rate remains near its low point in recent decades, and crime is not spilling out to the suburbs. But the story presents them merely as “dizzyingly different” perspectives—gee, it’s all moving so fast; how can we make sense of it?—with an insider’s wink and nod that not all these claims are equally true: “some much more than others.” What might the reporter have written instead? Something like “Trump is running on a falsified vision of America, and hoping he can make enough people believe it to win.” A statement like that might have seemed more “intrusive” by the canons of wire-service “objectivity” in another age, but it is far truer to the realities of this moment, and would stand up far better in history’s view. . . The institution I am part of, the media, is also being tested. The press isn’t the only part of America’s institutional crisis. But it’s an important part of the predicament we are in, and of the hope for getting out. . ."
". . . Nothing more could have been done. Nothing more could have been done.”. . . That’s what President Donald Trump told journalist Bob Woodward in August of the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Woodward revealed on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night. . . By that time, more than 167,000 Americans had died from COVID-19. . . "
". . . They may not remember that former President Obama limited Ebola's outbreak in the U.S. to 11 cases and two deaths by coordinating world leaders in arresting the virus at its source in West Africa and that Obama spearheaded testing for the H1N1 virus and provided 39 million masks, respirators and gloves to the states. And they may not be aware the Defense Production Act gives the president the responsibility to lead the fight against pandemics. . ."
