Bill Maher really takes the histrionic “scare-porn” of the mainstream media to task and it’s actually pretty clever and funny. Check it out:
Now the main point for Maher is that if they don’t stop scaring the crap out of Americans it’ll give Trump an edge in the election because he’s one of the few people actually speaking optimistically. But then he goes on to show how the media really is blowing things out of proportion to scare people.
I think there’s a good reason for this. I think some of the media furor is an attempt to really beat into people just what we’re facing in the pandemic in order to persuade them to follow the social distancing rules. But on the other hand, they can overdo it to the point that it makes people begin to doubt that they are being honest with them. We know all about that, don’t we?
Maher is right, the media should just present the facts and let us figure out how to feel about them. Treat us like adults. I think for the most part, people have made the rational decision. They see how bad the pandemic is, they see how its hitting our hospitals, and they’re largely going along with the edicts about staying home. When the government oversteps its bounds, they protest and hit back. All of this is what we expect out of a government that depends on the people making reasonable decisions. The media plays an important role in informing us so that we make the right decisions.
That’s what we try to do here at the Scoop, especially when the media is misleading us into believing things that aren’t true.
Maher ends with a warning to the media: “Trump calls you fake news. Don’t make him be right!”