Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Sick of the Media Hype
Townhall.com ^ | February 29, 2020 | Michael Reagan

Posted on 02/29/2020 3:42:10 AM PST by Kaslin

Two weeks ago, I was happily sailing on a huge cruise ship in the Indian Ocean.

My wife Collen is a travel agent and I was tagging along with her and her group on a Celebrity Cruise Line ship as it sailed from Dubai to Singapore and back with 2,300 souls aboard.

Everyone on board our ship knew what was happening that same week to the unlucky people stuck on the Diamond Princess cruise liner docked offshore Tokyo.

Because a passenger who left Diamond Princess nine days earlier in Hong Kong had tested positive for the new coronavirus sweeping China, the Japanese government had ordered everyone to stay aboard the luxury cruise ship.

We weren't doctors or epidemiologists, just vacationers.

But we knew that cooping 2,666 people together on the Diamond Princess for 14 days was going to be trouble - and it was.

Because Japanese officials dithered around and then screwed up their containment measures on the ship for two weeks, the Diamond Princess became what the New York Times called "a floating epidemiological disaster."

According to the Times, "with 634 infections and two deaths, the cruise ship represents the largest concentration of coronavirus cases outside China."

We were a lot luckier, even though we never made it all the way to Singapore.

Our wise captain decided it wasn't worth the risk of getting any closer to the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak and we turned back to Dubai after stopping at Sri Lanka.

The Celebrity Cruise Line people did everything right. Everyone was compensated for their lost cruise time and given $500 to pay for straightening up their travel arrangements.

Most important, as far as I know, no one on our cruise ship caught the flu.

Since I've been back in Southern California, however, I've been getting sick watching the mainstream media sensationalize the dangers of the coronavirus.

Every time another country like Brazil gets its first official coronovirus case, they throw up another panicky headline about how the deadly pandemic is putting every human on the planet at risk.

The mainstream media rarely take the trouble to point out that it is the already sick, the very old and the very young who are most likely to die from flu-caused problems like pneumonia, strokes and heart attacks.

The coronavirus may yet live up to its media hype and become a true pandemic in the United States or elsewhere that kills hundreds of thousands.

But as the stock market dropped a few thousand points this week on the Dow Jones, it'd be a nice public service if the media put the death toll of the coronavirus in the proper perspective.

President Trump did exactly that during his press conference on Wednesday.

He pointed out to the entire country that old-fashioned Asian flu - the regular kind of constantly changing viruses that many of us take shots for every year - kills from 25,000 to 69,000 Americans a year.

Every year after every year after every year.

When President Trump admitted he was "shocked" to learn that the "regular" flu was so deadly, he was of course mocked for his ignorance by the mainstream liberal media and their Democrat pals.

They would like you to think President Trump is the only person in America who wasn't up to speed on America's annual flu deaths, which actually are statistical estimates made by the Centers for Disease Control.

But I bet most Republicans and Democrats were unaware of how deadly the "regular" flu is.

For example, did you know that 2017-2018 was one of the deadliest flu seasons in our history?

Did you know that 80,000 Americans - older, younger, sicker Americans -- died that flu season, the most since the mid-1970s?

Do you remember the scary media stories, the doomsday predictions, the panic in the streets, the stock market crash of early 2018, the soccer games played in empty stadiums, the closing of public schools?

Neither do I -- and neither do the media.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: coronavirus; media
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-32 next last

1 posted on 02/29/2020 3:42:10 AM PST by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The mainstream media, America’s number one domestic enemy.


2 posted on 02/29/2020 3:50:00 AM PST by SmokingJoe
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SmokingJoe

Then you have the FR chicken littles posting every one of these panic stories too. Chill out already!


3 posted on 02/29/2020 3:57:10 AM PST by PLOM...NOT! (With guns, we are citizens. Without them, we are subjects.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The hype is deliberate. First, it spooked investors and made the stock indexes fall. That was intentional. They (the left) was creaming their jeans over the high stock market numbers, caused by Trump. Second, it’s to cause extreme anxiety that will lead an ignorant public to blame Trump, assisted, of course, by a compliant media.

Already the “candidates” are all blaming Trump.


4 posted on 02/29/2020 3:57:51 AM PST by I want the USA back (We have sunk to a depth where restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men:Orwell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Common sense


5 posted on 02/29/2020 4:02:58 AM PST by Guenevere (Press On!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

“we never made it all the way to Singapore. Our wise captain decided it wasn’t worth the risk of getting any closer to the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak”

And yet this guy’s complaining. Since it’s a hoax, I’m certain he can easily still find a way to get to Singapore and finish his lovely third world hellhole tour with a complimentary 7 course bat & rat meal.


6 posted on 02/29/2020 4:03:26 AM PST by LouieFisk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Don’t worry about, it’s just the politics of the moment.

If you were up against Trump you’d do the same thing. The markets will recover and zoom to new highs when all the money returns.


7 posted on 02/29/2020 4:07:51 AM PST by period end of story (Give me a firm spot, and I will move the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SmokingJoe
The mainstream media, America’s number one domestic enemy.

Worth repeating.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.

The mainstream media are traitors. They owe their allegiance to Progressivism, and their view of global governance.

8 posted on 02/29/2020 4:09:49 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: LouieFisk
Were is he complaining. He agreed obviously with the the captain and I bet the other passengers did too.

And BTW in case you are unaware that guy is the son of President Ronald Reagan.

Now stfu, you ignoramus

9 posted on 02/29/2020 4:12:00 AM PST by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

“Where is he complaining.”

The whole thing is one non-stop complaint about how the coronavirus is a media hoax that interrupted his hellhole tour. If it’s fake, as he claims, he can easily prove it by finishing his third world dump extravaganza, starting in Singapore.

“that guy is the son of President Ronald Reagan.”

Sorry, no one get a pass for stupid whining about being inconvenienced just because he has some name or another attached to his own - if they did, there’s already a Ronald Reagan, Jr. He doesn’t impress me either - people should learn to make a living from something other than a name they were bequeathed. I don’t believe that someone is infallible just because he’s titled “Pope”, either.


10 posted on 02/29/2020 4:23:38 AM PST by LouieFisk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: PLOM...NOT!

Let me see if I get this. There is an infectious agent that is killing people who are retarded enough to live in urban death zones? And some of us are “worried”? This could save us from having to have a civil war.


11 posted on 02/29/2020 4:25:24 AM PST by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Sick of the media hype? Ignore it. Don’t take it seriously. Learn where to find the truth. It’ll salve your psyche.


12 posted on 02/29/2020 4:28:22 AM PST by Theophilous Meatyard III
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PLOM...NOT!

I agree who heartedly. Wish everyone would get a grip. But I know that is impossible for a society who wants everything now.


13 posted on 02/29/2020 4:29:21 AM PST by LoveMyFreedom
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: LouieFisk
I fail to see where he is complaining about not sailing into Singapore. Sounds like he was congratulating the captain for his good judgement.

To be honest, since he was a strong Anti-Trump man during the 2016 election, I found the article to be rather refreshing in that he feels President Trump is right, the media is wrong.

14 posted on 02/29/2020 5:01:08 AM PST by Abby4116
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: LouieFisk

No he was actually complimenting the liner for being prudent.


15 posted on 02/29/2020 5:11:41 AM PST by Chickensoup (Voter ID for 2020!! Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: LouieFisk

did you read it.


16 posted on 02/29/2020 5:12:20 AM PST by Chickensoup (Voter ID for 2020!! Leftists totalitarian fascists appear to be planning to eradicate conservatives)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Abby4116

“I fail to see where he is complaining about not sailing into Singapore.”

The entire thing is a complaint about how there’s no problem, just the media saying that these is. Easy enough to prove, he can finish his journey to the total dogshite-lands, with not a thing to worry about and he’ll have proven it’s all just a hoax.
Or for that matter, demand to be housed with those in quarantine in the US. Either way he’d expose the media and show them up good!


17 posted on 02/29/2020 5:15:07 AM PST by LouieFisk
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: SmokingJoe

Not just America’s.

Have you seen the British tabs?

They’re doing the same thing to BoJo.


18 posted on 02/29/2020 5:17:42 AM PST by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Chickensoup

No, but i told those kids to get off my lawn before i call the cops.


19 posted on 02/29/2020 5:18:33 AM PST by Leep (Everyday is Trump Day!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: LouieFisk

Singapore is Hardly Third World my man

It’s very nice I actually


20 posted on 02/29/2020 5:20:58 AM PST by wardaddy (I applaud Jim Robinson for his comments on the Southern Monuments decision ...thank you)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-32 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson