{"id":386,"date":"2020-04-21T16:12:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T16:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.justtalk.blog\/?p=386"},"modified":"2020-04-21T17:40:37","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T17:40:37","slug":"covid-denialism-and-media-complicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/2020\/04\/21\/covid-denialism-and-media-complicity\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID Denialism and Media Complicity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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April 12th: Sheriff deputies practicing social distancing with PPE while attempting to shut down a public protest over COVID-19 in the jail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why is it so hard to get basic facts about the extent of COVID-19 infections and their spread in Broome County? Weeks and weeks of protests and public pressure have finally produced a few details and the naming, reluctantly, of a few local hotspots. Prime among these is the jail, as predicted for months by local community organizations and activists. But what is being done? To listen or watch most local media reports we hear only the official line: don’t worry, be happy, all is good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local NPR station WSKG has written and broadcast successive defenses of the Sheriff and the jail (e.g. by Natalie Abruzzo here<\/a>) as has Channel 12 WBNG (e.g. here<\/a>). Not to be outdone, today the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin published an article by Anthony Borrelli<\/a> on the front page of the paper.  It is as fine a defense as one might imagine of the wonderous work done by the county to make the jail, in the Sheriff’s words, the \u201csafest place\u201c in the county. (One does wonder how it could be so, given the reportedly 22 COVID-19 cases and the many more–numbers unknown–waiting to be tested if the county ever gets an adequate number of tests.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article is a clear counter to the New York Post piece<\/a> from last week which cited the incarcerated at some length about the spread of infection and the lack of safety in the jail.  Of course no person inside was apparently interviewed by Borelli (or WSKG and others), no criticism or critic referenced (JUST\u2019s website<\/a> and social media list many quotes from persons inside on the coronavirus threat), no physical layout of the jail noted or observed, no oversight body contacted.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Incarcerated: “Social distancing? our beds are 18″ apart!”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Well, the last is understandable since there is no real oversight, neither by the state nor local authorities like the Broome County Health Department even though the jail is now the prime incubator and spreader of COVID-19 locally. Denialism today has a history: for years the county has has turned a blind eye to medical malfeasance and excessive deaths, even as the county and jail have been steadily losing wrongful death and abuse lawsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these claims can be denied now as in the past. For as reported by Borelli, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHarder, on Monday, said the inmates\u2019 claims were false.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 That\u2019s all the public needs to know.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This follows the media\u2019s earlier felicitous reporting of the Sheriff’s words that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMedically everything is going well, there’s been no infection whatsoever.\u201d (March 24)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Inmates] are safer inside our facility. They aren\u2019t out in the general public where the disease is prevalent\u201d (March 26)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we do now? Even the county has to acknowledge the widespread spread of coronavirus in the jail, while over 300 people move into and out of the building every day. Perhaps someone might ask the County Executive a few pointed questions at his next, closed to the public, press conference? Or really listen to those inside and their families, and investigate in some detail? Denialism now as in the past comes with deadly consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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April 14 protest: Who has masks on? Who is practicing distancing?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is it so hard to get basic facts about the extent of COVID-19 infections and their spread in Broome County? Weeks and weeks of protests and public pressure have finally produced a few details and the naming, reluctantly, of a few local hotspots. Prime among these is the jail, as predicted for months by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,23,8,14],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-broome-county-covid","tag-covid-denialism","tag-covid-19","tag-sheriff-harder","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398,"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justtalk.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}