Trump and Babis Won’t Admit It, but Critical Media Help Them During Epidemic

There are not many situations in which the media should hold off criticism until better times. In present-day America, as in the Czech Republic, that will only worsen the course of the pandemic.

The problems that various countries of the world must solve during the coronavirus pandemic are as similar as peas in a pod. In the U.S., as in the Czech Republic, testing began too little and too late. In both countries, there is also a shortage of basic protective gear, masks, respirators, gloves, goggles and disinfecting agents. Of everything, really.

In the U.S., as in the Czech Republic, there is a shortage of health care workers. Even if Americans aren’t as handy at improvisation as the Czechs, many of them, too, have begun sewing their own masks.

The similarities don’t end there. In both countries it took leading politicians some time before they recognized or grasped the extent of the crisis or before they could bring themselves to admit it – to themselves first, in some cases, or to citizens later. Until that happened, they tried to downplay key problems, act evasively, or shift the blame.

There’s no point in repeating the statement of Premier Andrej Babis and members of the Czech cabinet on testing and health care supplies. Just as there’s no point in repeating Donald Trump’s words. We have already been described in these pages how his “flu” became a menace in the course of several days, forcing the president to declare a state of emergency.

Keep an Eye on the Government, Here and Now

It’s worth noting one difference, that is the deliberations over the extent to which journalists should criticize their government and politicians right now, if at all. In the Czech Republic, a suggestion has appeared from directly inside media circles that we should delay our criticism and just support the government at this time.

In the United States, to be sure, journalists themselves are making no such decisions. Fox News is aiming its usual fire at the “left-wing media,” which allegedly wants to misuse the coronavirus outbreak to take down the president. But we can overlook that. In this regard, there is a different kind of clarity about things in the American media. Even in such trying times as a worldwide pandemic, the task of journalists is to keep an eye on the government. Here and now, not later.

If you follow the American media, it’s obvious that the pandemic is approaching a state of war, but not yet. Distorted information and outright lies are inexcusable – we’re not dealing with military secrets, the betrayal of which would inherently endanger lives. Even withholding information – in the sense of “better not say it, to avoid causing panic” – should not be tolerated from the government.

The Wall Street Journal is a serious conservative daily that tries to be fair to Trump. But that is not at all incompatible with watching the president and his administration’s every move and pointing out mistakes.

A Thursday headline on a lengthy article read “America Needed Coronavirus Tests. The Government Failed.” It was a news article, and by no means a commentary in which an author one can whip things up with greater or lesser license. No, here it’s news reporting, capturing the state of things. Consider three remarks below quoted by the Journal.

“Now, the U.S. is testing far fewer patients than public-health and infectious-disease experts say is necessary and just a fraction as many as other countries,” the Journal wrote. To which one must add, obviously, that the U.S., like the Czech Republic, could not have prepared fully for the magnitude of the crisis. But once it arrived, what was the first reaction of political leaders?

The Discreet Charm of Criticism

“Leaders including President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar early in the outbreak appeared unable or unwilling to envision a crisis of the scale that has now emerged, and no one stepped up to effectively coordinate among federal agencies or the private-sector labs, medical providers and manufacturers needed for a large-scale testing push,” the Journal wrote.

Of course, one might raise the following objection to the media here. Okay, if you must, criticize, but you won’t improve anything by doing so – quite the opposite. But even that is not true. “Some White House aides learned of complaints about the availability of testing from the media, not the public-health officials in their own government,” the Journal reported, citing “an administration official familiar with the matter.”

Criticism from the media is bothersome to politicians, and their first instinct is to resist it. But in the end, it can be effective and it can work to the benefit of a situation, as when it points out problems and mistakes about which politicians themselves are unaware.

There’s no proof, and certainly neither Trump nor Babis would admit it, but media pressure has influenced their decision-making and behavior for the better. Trump has changed his tone, and has begun to act with a sobriety and urgency appropriate to the situation. He is no longer concealing the extent of the crisis, and is more credible than at any time earlier, certainly more than a couple of weeks ago.

In the case of Babis and his team, the media forced the government to come out with the truth and, instead of evasiveness and saying that masks and respirators were “well on the way,” it simply admitted that, objectively speaking, it was a huge problem to buy these devices given the current global shortage and confusion. That’s understandable, but the beginning of a solution is always to admit the problem. And Babis’ team had apparently felt reluctant to do that.

That’s also true of testing. Czech and American media reported the scandalous experiences of certain people (and laboratories). This again worked as a necessary nudge to force politicians to stop making things up. Their statements that “everyone is getting tested” was not only untrue but even dangerous.

If you initially create the impression that everyone is getting tested, so then I’ll get tested, too, just to be sure, you end up making things that much worse by spurring the public on to needlessly clog up a system that is simply overburdened.

Hands Off Vaclav Havel?

One of the tenets of American journalism is “be skeptical, but not cynical.” Politicians are not intrinsically scoundrels, and it’s stupid to approach them as crooks. But it would be equally stupid to shut one’s eyes to something they do wrong because of the gravitas they convey.

In the summer of 1990, Vaclav Havel received tremendous, well-deserved credit from journalists, both here and abroad. Of course, he was, in his own way, a hero, even for Ben Bradlee, The Washington Post’s editor-in-chief at the time. But when Havel’s spokesman Michael Zantovsky said, half jokingly during a debate among Bradlee and other American journalists, that certain Czech news writers deserved to go to jail for their articles, it immediately aroused the vigilance of an American reporter in Bradlee.

It provoked healthy skepticism, and, regardless of his sympathy for Havel, Bradlee didn’t conceal his doubts. “Freedom of the press includes the freedom to be wrong, even to be irresponsible. Government intervention (sue the bastard) and government threats (send them to jail) are rarely if ever appropriate,” he wrote back then in The Washington Post.

For this author, who was just then getting started in the media, and who hung onto Havel’s every word and that of his people, it was like a blow to the gut. Criticize Havel? How dare you!?

Only that was not impudence, but, plainly and simply, normal, healthy and necessary journalistic sensitivity. Politicians are not unassailable, and there are few situations in which the media should hold off criticism until better times. In present-day America, as in the Czech Republic, that will only worsen the course of the pandemic.