On Monday, a handful of Democratic governors announced plans to lift mask mandates in schools; the internal polling must have been terrible. Jen Psaki said it was the Biden administration’s recommendation that states keep mask mandates in place. On Wednesday, Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich asked Psaki why we weren’t hearing the same messaging criticizing states as we had heard previously with Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida.
Drew Holden has also noted the lack of criticism of these Democrat-run states just joining in and put together a thread of how the media had reacted when Florida dropped mask mandates.
🧵THREAD🧵
Blue states across the country are finally allowing kids to go to school without masks.
You may remember, a few short months ago, Florida was demonized for allowing the same.
Who’s up for a little side-by-side? And where does @GovRonDeSantis go for his apology? ⤵️
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
You may remember that, when DeSantis banned mandates, @CNN put together a heart-wrenching story about how even 12 year old kids knew that masks were necessary in schools.
But when it isn’t Florida allowing kids to be unmasked, we just get the facts.
Why the change? pic.twitter.com/S9aqWPqLLa
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
“This 12-year-old wrote a letter to her school board … urging them to mandate mask-wearing in schools to protect … her little brother.” And CNN made that national news. They even sent a news crew to the girl’s house to have her read it on air.
Over at @CNNPolitics, the same agitprop story got recycled in Florida.
But now? We’re told “Democratic governors outpace the White House with masking pullbacks.”
Oddly, I don’t recall the term “outpace” being used about DeSantis. pic.twitter.com/triNfLPuwH
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
We saw the same thing out of @CBSNews. When it was Florida allowing kids to go to school unmasked, we had viral letters urging mandates.
But now? Apparently these things no longer go viral. pic.twitter.com/6MvKbhyUNp
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
Recommended
Sidebar: using kids as props for your preferred political narrative is awful, esp when your narrative isn’t supported by the facts.
There have been a total of 67 kids 17 & under who have died w/ Covid in FL, ~1% of all lives lost under 18.
Remember that as you see the coverage.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
Anyway, back to the media.
Are we not going to have a round of outraged doctors on to talk about what “science says” this time, @CBSNews?
Is it saying something differently now? Or is it merely silent as these new mandates fall? pic.twitter.com/gdyrMTM0vK
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
“The science has changed.”
Again. Where are the feature stories on distraught children who are no longer going to be forced to wear masks in these states, @TODAYshow? pic.twitter.com/Zpb8Mt702f
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
@MSNBC quoted @DavidJollyFL to suggest that, without governors acting like DeSantis, “we could end this pandemic.” Quite the claim!
But when New Jersey dropped their mandate, it’s just a supportive quote from the governor about why it made sense. pic.twitter.com/zNd16O2ibW
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
Perhaps my favorite about-face was from @BusinessInsider, who ran a piece about how 3 teachers in Florida died from Covid *during their summer vacation* as a scare story but now it’s Biden who’s in the wrong for “getting left behind by his own party” as blue states lift mandates. pic.twitter.com/OicahXyy9I
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
In a common practice, @washingtonpost focused on the perspective of critics when it came to masking in Florida.
In other states where kids can now attend without masks, we’re just given the straight information that mandates are “falling.” pic.twitter.com/uCEyinMAl8
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
And we saw the same thing from @nytimes.
In Florida, the story is about the angry school boards. Not so when “several Democratic governors” end mandates – then it’s all about the good reasons they’ve offered for their decisions. pic.twitter.com/rm8wYznbST
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
I want to pause here to address a criticism I’ll surely get.
Yes, Florida banned mandates in schools, whereas in these other states the existing mask mandates have been ended or allowed to expire.
But in terms of the coverage, this difference is semantic.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
The criticism of DeSantis (predominantly) wasn’t that he’d overstepped his authority; it was that he was going to get kids killed b/c schools won’t require masks.
Take @PressSec. Her worry about a world where “there were not masks in elementary school” is curiously absent now. pic.twitter.com/g2qfK2PXuX
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
That variety of concern bled over into the media. Just take a look at @joyannreid.
When it was DeSantis, Reid was “in horrified disbelief that any Florida governor would condemn his own state’s citizens to sickness and death.”
That concern is absent when the good guys do it.⤵️ pic.twitter.com/MrH0DU2hEf
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
Or look at the difference in the way that @kylegriffin1 framed this.
In Florida, he made it sound as if teaching in person was so life-threatening that teachers needed to draft wills.
For Democratic states? Again: just the facts. pic.twitter.com/n1QaBW3q1M
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
And throughout all this, it was never just DeSantis. @MSNBC worked themselves into a hysteria about @GovernorVA doing something similar merely two weeks ago.
But when blue New Jersey does away with masks? Oddly, the anger is absent. pic.twitter.com/iQMZPFpR4F
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
“Experts discuss …”
(@kylegriffin1 did this, too, for Arizona. Interesting how the fact that the blue state governors “ignored CDC recommendations” is curiously absent, unlike in Arizona. And of course, Kyle wasn’t alone in this.) pic.twitter.com/7Csa8fzcQ3
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
But back to DeSantis.@ABC treated schools in Florida as if they were Berlin during the US airlift when DeSantis banned mask mandates.
Now the story is far simpler: states change rules. That’s it. pic.twitter.com/yaqoJYgzVt
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
@NPR took a break from their round-the-clock coverage of how innocuous things are racist to raise the alarm about the number of new Covid cases in Floria (in a district that still required masks!).
Think we’ll get that breathless coverage in these other states? I doubt it. pic.twitter.com/aXVbNehE0j
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
@therecountput together a full timetable of “the pandemic problem child” Florida’s decision making around masks and schools.
But over in New Jersey, the state with the third-most deaths per capita (a full 15 spots ahead of Florida” instead it’s just “mandate no more.” pic.twitter.com/xqWxQnS4Nv
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
In Florida, the story from @thedailybeast was that the state had “just found a way to be even more COVID reckless “
But in blue states? Well, they haven’t even covered the lifting of their mandates. Maybe because they’re spending their time watching Fox talk about them instead. pic.twitter.com/BlrGElm95q
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
I try to talk a lot about framing, and how it can (and is) used by outlets to give their readers a clear indication who they ought to believe are the good guys & the bad guys based on which voices are elevated in coverage.
This, in my view, has been a pretty egregious example.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
So, I ask again, where does @GovRonDeSantis go for his apology?
Beyond just weaponizing the coverage to take shots at a pol the media doesn’t like, this type of breathless reporting skews perceptions about the risk of Covid for kids.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
We’ve long known that risk is quite small: less than from the seasonal flu, much lower than for other populations.
This piece from July by @dwallacewells in @NYMag does a great job explaining how school mitigation efforts aren’t aligned w/ the real risk. https://t.co/rr9JTSoBm1
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
And as I’ve said before, it’s good that these states are making wiser choices than they were.
But it sure does do a good job of revealing the hypocrisy with which much of the corporate press has treated the issue of kids and Covid throughout the pandemic.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022
Related:
Jen Psaki defends continued masking for everyone — including kids — while lying through her maskless teeth about Ron DeSantis [videos] https://t.co/jA7x4h9nXQ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 9, 2022
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