In this case, CNN media analyst Brian Stelter cited several conservatives who he said are charging that the media is using the virus to attack President Trump.
From the top of the Sunday, March 1 Reliable Sources on CNN:
BRIAN STELTER: "News outlets have a really important job right now, conveying accurate information, and part of the job is to tamp down on undue fears. Unfortunately, this virus has infected the political arena in ways that are truly jaw-dropping. Pro-Trump media stars are defending Trump’s handling the outbreak by accusing news outlets — I can't even believe — they're accusing news outlets of rooting for the virus. Watch."
RUSH LIMBAUGH: "It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump."
STELTER: "Recent Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh, one of many cooking up partisan conspiracy theories about the coronavirus. Chief among them, it’s the news media’s fault."
MICK MULVANEY AT CPAC: "They think this is gonna be what brings down the president. That’s what this is all about."
STELTER: "Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney making the shocking claim that the media is somehow using the virus to take down Trump. Mulvaney picking up right where Fox’s Sean Hannity left off, blaming Democrats for making this political."
SEAN HANNITY: "Sadly, politicizing and actually weaponizing an infectious disease. What is basically just the latest effort to bludgeon President Trump."
STELTER: "These talking points are bouncing back and forth between the Trumps and their TV surrogates, portraying the president as the victim-in-chief. And going so far to say the president’s perceived enemies actually want people to die."
DONALD TRUMP JR.: "Anything that they can use to try to hurt Trump, they will. But for them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they can end Donald Trump’s streak of winning is a new level of sickness."
STELTER: "This is not the first time the Trump machine has conjured up a conspiracy narrative, full of misinformation and fearmongering. But this time, the backdrop is a public health emergency. Still, irresponsible claims abound."
LIMBAUGH: "I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. Yeah, dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks."
STELTER: "Experts have debunked that, but it’s all part of a Trump defense strategy: fighting a virus by playing politics."
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Stelter has it exactly backward. It isn’t conservatives who are infecting the media with misinformation, but liberal media figures like Stelter, who are infecting media coverage of a disease by viewing the coronavirus through the prism of their political take on President Trump’s performance.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
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