Trump accuses media of 'COVID shaming' him over big rallies
The Hill media reporter Joe Concha on the media's coverage of protests versus the president's rally.
The mainstream media's coverage of Black Lives Matter protests versus President Trump's upcoming rallies during the COVID-19 pandemic exposes their underlying hypocrisy, The Hill's Joe Concha stated Tuesday.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends First" with hosts Jillian Mele and Rob Schmitt, the media reporter pointed to coverage of a massive protest against the killing of Black Trans Americans in New York City over the weekend.
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One of many nationwide, the Black Trans Lives Matter rally in Brooklyn drew a tightly packed crowd of 15,000 on Sunday.
As Concha noted to Schitt and Mele, there was no room for social distancing.
"And yet, we saw a media that just was so in awe of this massive rally because apparently, Rob, the cause is bigger than the virus. When we were told for many months...that the virus and health concerns were the only [things]," he remarked.
Concha added that while many members of the media would mask-shame and COVID-shame people who wanted to go to the beach or a park after states opened, no one was shaming these protesters about the possibility of super-spreading. Especially as cases in states with loosened restrictions are trending upward.
"Or, even in Brooklyn. The same Brooklyn -- you can't bring your kid to a playground. Playgrounds are literally chain-linked shut because a couple of kids playing outside?" he questioned. "That's bad. [Protests are] good because the cause is bigger than the virus..."
Concha believes a lot of criticism the president has taken for continuing to hold campaign rallies and August's Republican National Convention may lie in the optics: a deadly contagion in a closed stadium seating 20,000 people.
"Look, the only thing that I would say about the president in terms of his criticism: I would think and I would hope that moving forward perhaps the president -- particularly because it's summer and something like a million people have requested tickets to this rally in Tulsa -- why not just hold these things outside?" he asked.
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"Because then, at least, we know that outdoors the spread is probably lower than it is indoors for various reasons," Concha told the "Friends First" hosts.
"But again, the hypocrisy that you're seeing [during protests] right now compared to what we saw a couple [of] weeks ago when people were just on beaches, just walking down and you have reporters saying 'that person's not wearing a mask...' it's pretty apparent to the American people right now," he concluded.