Commentary from Jeff Childers 'Coffee & Covid'

New readers probably don’t know that I completed a year of journalism school in college, back when professors would give you an “F” at the drop of a hat for getting a fact wrong or mischaracterizing something. One of my favorite pastimes is ripping up corporate media’s political press releases dressed up in journalism costumes.

So let’s do another one! In the wake of news of the Florida Supreme Court’s approval of the Governor’s petition for a Covid Grand Jury, the Hill ran a stale cold-take yesterday headlined, “DeSantis’s Request for COVID Vaccine Probe Denounced by Health Experts.”

Denounced!

Well, not exactly. The halfhearted story rounded up a rogue’s gallery of compliant “experts” to criticize the Governor. One omission in particular would’ve earned the writer an “F”: they failed to mention a single one of DeSantis’ own experts who spoke eloquently at his roundtable justifying the Grand Jury. They did mention the roundtable, and I give them props for linking it on Rumble. (Sorry, YouTube!)

Here’s the Hill’s entire description of the Governor’s RoundTable:

The request was first made known during a roundtable discussion the Florida governor held last week, in which he condemned what he viewed as the linking of morality to pandemic mitigation methods such as staying at home in the early parts of the outbreak and getting vaccinated once the shots became available later on, and criticized federal COVID-19 guidance as being a “huge political farce.”
That is all true, he did make those points. But overall, the Governor actually spoke very little at the roundtable. He mainly asked questions and let his public health and infectious disease experts answer. But oddly, the Hill omitted ALL reference to ANYTHING the Governor’s experts said. For all its readers know, nobody else attended the roundtable. It was a roundtable with one big chair.

This is what is goes for “balance” these days. Maybe the Hill reporter was working at the speed of journalism?

Anyway, the Hill summarized the opinions of its crack squad of counter-experts like this:

"Public health experts and physicians, however, said DeSantis’s approach to scrutinizing the vaccines was flawed and counterproductive to promoting public health."

I bet they hated having to add the words “approach to.” To please their demanding pharma masters, the cowardly sycophant reporters really wanted say that “scrutinizing the vaccines” itself is “counterproductive.” But they knew it would give away the game, tipping a story that is practically a vaccine advertisement right into the marketing bin.

So they were left with this tepid argument: DeSantis “approach” to “scrutinizing” vaccines is supposedly flawed and counterproductive. How “flawed?” How “counterproductive?” The Hill doesn’t say, not exactly, nor does it suggest any less-flawed or more productive way to “scrutinize the vaccines.”
The Hill’s entire premise is wrong. DeSantis isn’t going to scrutinize the vaccines, that’s the Grand Jury’s job. Actually, even the Grand Jury won’t scrutinize the vaccines. They are what they are, and aren’t. The Grand Jury is going to scrutinize the PEOPLE who pushed the vaccines using false information, like the claim that you’d help end the pandemic by taking the vaccine, or that the mRNA would stick in the injection site instead of seeping into your heart, brain, testicles and ovaries.

Rather than explain its premise, the Hill mounted a weak defense of the jabs using the “previously stated” opinions of un-identified experts and un-named “studies”:

As has been previously stated by physicians and researchers, no vaccine is 100 percent effective, but studies have consistently shown the coronavirus vaccines offer strong enough protection for recipients to prevent severe disease, hospitalization and death.
Really? The jabs have “strong enough protection” to “prevent severe disease, hospitalization and death?”

That’s weird, especially in light of the Washington Post’s “pandemic of the vaccinated” article last month, in which it said:

"For the first time, a majority of Americans dying from the coronavirus received at least the primary series of the vaccine. Fifty-eight percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated or boosted… a continuation of a troubling trend that has emerged over the past year. As vaccination rates have increased and new variants appeared, the share of deaths of people who were vaccinated has been steadily rising. In September 2021, vaccinated people made up just 23 percent of coronavirus fatalities. In January and February this year, it was up to 42 percent."
Huh. If the jabs “prevent” death as the Hill claimed yesterday, how could almost 60% of Covid deaths be in VACCINATED people? Maybe I don’t understand what “prevent” means.
Next, the Hill’s roundup of cherry-picked experts criticized the Grand Jury as follows:

DeSantis “appears to be focused on creating fear around vaccines that have been shown to be safe and effective,” rather than protecting the lives of Floridians.

In other words, the Grand Jury might hurt vaccine sales, which are already on a ventilator. It also claimed to be able to look into the Governor’s mind, bypassing the reasons the Governor and his experts gave, and telling us the “real” reason for the Grand Jury: to create fear.

But, do you know who’s DEFINITELY been creating fear? That’s right, the media. Apparently it’s okay when the media does it, to sell vaccines, but it’s not okay for the Governor to do it, even assuming the Hill correctly imputed the Governor’s motive.
There are legitimate avenues for evaluating vaccine recommendations, but DeSantis’s investigation request was not one. “This is turning a matter of health and science into a political wedge issue, with the likely consequence that many people will be misled into placing themselves and their families at risk of serious illness and death.”

Are they really trying to get us to believe, at this point, that there weren’t any politics involved in vaccine recommendations? It was always only “health and science?”

“His understanding of the facts or at least his articulation of the facts are just wrong.”

Okay, but WHICH facts were articulated wrong? Hello?

The investigation is “a waste of taxpayer money and time and effort.”

You have got to be kidding me.
“No one has either inappropriately or purposely either overstated or understated the vaccine in any way. It’s a brand-new technology. Like any brand-new technology, you make some assumptions about what you think’s going to happen. It actually turned out to be a whole lot better than most people thought it would be.”

This guy should review one of those collections of clips showing officials overstating the vaccine before he gives statements to media. And claiming that the vaccines worked out better than most people thought is pure gaslighting. NOBODY thinks that. He just made it up.

"Myocarditis following vaccination is a “transient phenomenon” from which the vast majority of patients fully recovered."
The heart muscle NEVER HEALS; cardiac damage is always permanent. The Hill’s expert didn’t cite any studies for this, either (he generally cited to a CDC “survey&rdquo. And ask all the dead people about how transient their myocarditis was. Oh wait, you can’t.

“The message is not as credible when [public officials] get into the weeds and start arguing really technical details without having the background and training.”

But again, DESANTIS didn’t argue any technical details. He listened to the experts, who did have the background and training.

It’s obvious that none of the Hill’s experts actually watched the roundtable, and not one of them commented on what DeSantis’ experts said, even though the story was based on the roundtable. The truth is, all the Hill’s experts’ arguments were rebutted in the roundtable discussion.
Bottom line: DeSantis outplayed the media. Again!