By PAUL NATINSKY
Many recent articles appearing in mainstream conservative newspapers and magazines have bemoaned the unfair persecution of people who choose not to be vaccinated. Many authors find vindication in the shifting nature of virus variants, COVID’s growing footprint as an endemic virus and the highly contagious but less severe omicron variant currently dominating headlines.
What has been left out of many such reports are a few salient facts and included have been some curious policy rationales.
Case in point—The nation’s 17 million healthcare workers must be vaccinated, but not its 80 million workers as the Supreme Court split the baby of the latest federal bill on the subject. As increasing numbers of providers miss work for illness, they are not afforded the very same protections shielding their patients.
Its also been widely reported that two-thirds of COVID hospitalization cases are comprised of the unvaxxed as Michigan hospitals make public appeals for judicious emergency room use and increased vaccinations—the same hospitals that have had to call in federal manpower help as cases surge and caregivers increasingly sicken.
It’s one thing for opinion mills—on the right and left—to take a righteous, one-sided view of almost every news story. It’s quite another for heretofore responsible newspapers and magazines—yes, there still are some around—to do the same.
Measured and responsible voices are increasingly important as news without a point of view becomes increasingly rare.
In many cases, the danger is double. We expect the major broadcast, and especially cable, news outlets to contain heavy portions of opinion dispensed through a one-sided, context-free mechanism.
But the staid and sober presentations of responsible reporters belie the omissions and logical flaws of many of recent stories.
Like it or not, media has a responsibility to report the full context of stories. It’s time to reestablish that quaint old-fashioned tradition.