This weekend Clarice Feldman of American Thinker looked at how the 'Trump wants people to swallow bleach' myth came about. Her article, Virus Strikes Media Dumb, prompted some thoughts.
According to Clarice, last Thursday's press conference was just this week's edition of how to
"refashion news on the Wuhan virus to attack the President. As been the case from the beginning, the press is using every foul means to demean him and make this the Trump Virus, ignoring his measured approach and successes."
"This week they glommed onto his remarks in a presser that revealed the contagion curve is flattening and diminishing to suggest that Trump had called for something as possible remediation -- bleach injection -- that he had not. In some cases, they flat-out lied about what he said. In others, they edited the presser video to achieve the same distortion."
Here is the relevant discussion from that presser:
White House coronavirus task force briefing
Both bleach and ultraviolet light were among the virus "disinfectants"
"Bill Bryan, Under Secretary for Science and Technology at DHS, talked about the half-life of the coronavirus on surfaces like door handles and stainless steel surfaces, saying that when they "inject" UV rays into the mix along with high temperatures and increased humidity that the virus dies quickly. . . . [Bryan said] We've tested bleach, we've tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus, specifically in saliva or in respiratory fluids, and I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes," Bryan said. "Isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds, and that's with no manipulation, no rubbing. Just bring it on and leaving it go. You rub it and it goes away even faster."
Bryan's briefing mentions that both bleach and ultraviolet light were among the virus "disinfectants" (his word) that the DHS tested. But it was only the bleach that was tested on human fluids and proved effective at killing the virus in five minutes. Returning to the transcript, we next find President Trump stating the following:
"So, I'm going to ask Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of if you're totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing when we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it'd be interesting to check that, so that you're going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we'll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That's pretty powerful."
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Any reasonable person not utterly blinded by bias cannot avoid concluding that the President was talking about UV light
Another point we must notice is this: President Trump framed his question about 'ultraviolet or very powerful light' to make it clear that he was asking a question about that specific disinfectant and not any other tested therapy, including bleach. Although he would use the word "disinfectant" a few seconds later, the disinfectant he refers to cannot be bleach because he went on to say that the disinfectant he was thinking of "knocks it out in a minute, one minute." According to Bryan, the disinfectant that knocks out the virus in one minute was not bleach, but UV light. President Trump confirms that UV light was the subject of his thought a few seconds later when he reiterates what he was talking about, which was "the light, the way it kills in one minute."
From this, any reasonable person not utterly blinded by bias cannot avoid concluding that the President was talking about UV light. So how did the myth start?
First the negative. It is not yet widely known, but scientists have developed a catheter that emits UV light in a specific frequency that kills various bugs including the CCP virus. A short video showing how it is done is found on this Twitter post:
Reporters took to Twitter to mock @realDonaldTrump for talking about UV light killing coronavirus instead of researching it first.
AP: "Pre-clinical findings indicate the technology’s significant impact on eradicating... coronavirus."
Ultraviolet light inside the bodies of patients inflicted with respiratory infections
And here's part of an AP Press release connected with the above story. AP announced on April 20th a novel treatment developed by scientists at Cedars-Sinai that administers ultraviolet light inside the bodies of patients inflicted with respiratory infections. The research team at Cedars-Sinai is currently working with the FDA to explore an expedited regulatory process to use the treatment as a possible medical intervention for those suffering from the Wuhan coronavirus.
(Via AP):
"[Aytu BioScience, Inc. (the "Company")], a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on commercializing novel products that address significant patient needs announced today that it has signed an exclusive worldwide license from Cedars-Sinai to develop and commercialize the Healight Platform Technology ("Healight"). This medical device technology platform, discovered and developed by scientists at Cedars-Sinai, is being studied as a potential first-in-class treatment for coronavirus and other respiratory infections."
"The Healight technology employs proprietary methods of administering intermittent ultraviolet (UV) A light via a novel endotracheal medical device. Pre-clinical findings indicate the technology's significant impact on eradicating a wide range of viruses and bacteria, inclusive of coronavirus."
Second, one of the journalists present either was not aware of this use of UV light, did not realize the subject of the President's question, or misrepresented the President when he asked Mr. Bryan the following question:
"The President mentioned the idea of a cleaner, bleach and isopropyl alcohol emerging. There's no scenario where that could be injected into a person, is there?"
Journalists are playing 'gotcha'
Before I go on to analyze what happened here, it is important to notice something about journalists' questions. Sometimes journalists ask questions with the intent to allow their respondents to clarify their positions. Sometimes people misunderstand this practice and think that journalists are playing 'gotcha' when they engage in it. That's incorrect: this kind of questioning is a legitimate exploration of a topic; it offers the respondent the opportunity to clarify or expand on his or her views.
But that was not what this questioner intended. He did not ask his question of the President to elicit a clarification or further development of his views. He was neither speaking to the President nor was he accurately quoting him. President Trump had not mentioned bleach or isopropyl alcohol. Only Mr. Bryan had done that.
Growing up in a household where both parents were professional journalists, I learned early on that it is a fundamental rule of the profession that reporters must understand and correctly report the 5 W's of a story (who, what, when, where, and why). By forgetting or not realizing that the "what" – the subject of President Trump's specific reference – was "ultraviolet or very powerful light," and by misattributing part of Mr. Bryan's statement to President Trump, ABC's Jon Karl committed two errors that would have shamed the greenest beginner and created yet another example of fake news.
This kind of fake news is dangerous because it misleads people. A smart friend of mine was watching the presser, and she gained the impression from Mr. Karl's question that it sounded like the President was talking about bleach.
But in this specific case, the misleading could lead to worse results than confusing my friend. Mr. Karl's misattribution could prove to be deadly. For if anyone were to gain the impression that the President was recommending drinking bleach, and then followed the recommendation and perished, it would be Mr. Karl, not President Trump, who would have their blood on his hands.
More than most outsiders, I know how difficult it is to do journalism responsibly and well. I also know how easy it is to make mistakes in this business. When the increasing pace of the news cycle robs reporters of the time the need to check their stories and their editors are forced by revenue shortages to lay off the copy editors whose job it is to catch errors, it is only reasonable to expect that mistakes will increase.
But neither of these problems can explain away the fact that Mr. Karl demonstrated that he is either monumentally incompetent – in getting his facts wrong at the most basic level known to the profession, or else deliberately malicious – in that he ignored inconvenient facts in an attempt to make President Trump look bad.
This fiasco raises an acute question: how can you trust a reporter's competence after he makes either of these errors? The short answer is that you can't. And having a reporter whose competence the audience can't trust is a direct threat to any news organization's credibility. If ABC News wants to maintain a shred of professional credibility, his manager needs to remove Jon Karl from the White House assignment immediately.
This weekend Clarice Feldman of American Thinker looked at how the 'Trump wants people to swallow bleach' myth came about. Her article, Virus Strikes Media Dumb, prompted some thoughts.
