Friday, March 27, 2020

Gallup Poll: Majority Of Americans Disapprove Of News Media Handling Of Wuhan Coronavirus



Of nine leaders and institutions rated by Americans in a new poll on their response to the novel Wuhan Coronavirus, the media fared the worst, and it’s not even close.

According to a new Gallup poll released Wednesday, the media was the only institution that scored a negative approval rating among the public with only 44 percent of Americans approving of the way the media has covered the virus. Fifty-five percent disapprove making for a -11 percent rating.

Gallup also gathered approval ratings for U.S. hospitals, schools and daycares, state governments, employers, government health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and Congress.

The next institution to score the lowest among the people was Congress, which garnered a 59 percent approval rating to 37 percent who reported disapproving. Trump landed a 60 percent approval rating to 38 percent saying otherwise.

The poll was conducted March 13-22 and surveyed a random sample of 1,020 adults through telephone interviews aged 18 and older in each state and the District of Columbia with a 4 percent margin of error.

Trump’s 22 percent net-positive rating marks a net-33 percent difference in public views towards the president and the media in present moment of crisis, and for good reason.

Last week, as the states began to issue “shelter-in-place” orders putting one in three Americans on lockdown to prevent the further spread of the Wuhan virus, the media parroted Chinese Communist Party propaganda and remained fixated on whether the president referencing where the virus came from was racist.

“Why do you keep calling it the Chinese virus?” one reporter asked the president during a White House press briefing on the pandemic.

“Because it comes from China,” Trump said plainly. “It’s not racist at all… It comes from China. That’s why. It comes from China. I want it to be accurate.”



The same kind of exchange was during the press briefings throughout the week, as woke media elites took the bait from the Chinese government charging the term “Wuhan virus” as offensive earlier this month.

“We condemn the despicable practice of U.S. politicians eagerly stigmatizing China and Wuhan by association with the novel [Wuhan] coronavirus, disrespecting science and WHO,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.

The media has since decried use of the same language they employed themselves at the start of the outbreak.



It is common practice to name a new disease after a place or population related to its historical significance. A few examples include German Measles, West Nile Virus, Guinea Worm, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme Disease, Ross River Fever, Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Valley Fever, Marburg Virus Disease, Norovirus, Zika Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, Spanish Flu, Lassa Fever, and Legionnaire’s Disease.

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