Media top headlines January 25
In media news today, Peter Doocy says Biden called his cellphone to ‘clear the air,’ Whoopi Goldberg goes off on Bill Maher for his pandemic comments, and Sarah Palin tests positive for COVID delaying her defamation case against the New York Times.
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg said COVID-19 was hardly "done" but conceded guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is part of the reason her kids now find school "joyless."
Goldberg was the latest progressive to respond to former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss' declaring on HBO's "Real Time" that she's "done" with COVID restrictions.
"I’m done with COVID! I’m done!" she said, before explaining how closely she had followed the rules at the beginning of the pandemic, saying it's "ridiculous" the country isn't back to normal.
Students attend class on the first day of school for the 2021-2022 year at Gounod Lavoisier Primary school in Lille, northern France, Thursday, Sept. 2 2021. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler) (AP Photo/Michel Spingler)
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While Goldberg didn't appear to agree with Weiss's declaration, she suggested that she feels the frustration after now two years of COVID mandates, particularly as a mother.
"There are certainly Covid mitigation policies that I think are awful. It’s absurd that in some places, New York City included, kids who get Covid can’t return to school for 10 days, even if they test negative earlier," she wrote. "(The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people need only quarantine for five days.) I hate the fact that my kids still have to wear masks outdoors at recess and that my daughter eats lunch on the cafeteria floor for reasons of social distancing."
The author expanded on how her children have suffered under the mandates.
"The C.D.C. recently put out updated guidance suggesting that some people, including those teaching students to read, might want to wear clear masks," she said. "This seems a tacit acknowledgment that ordinary face coverings can have an educational cost. They certainly have a social one; I have little doubt that masks are part of why my kids now find school so joyless, and I’ll be thrilled when they’re no longer necessary."
But Goldberg stopped short of supporting a mask mandate ban, saying that "those who work in schools are being infected in such huge numbers."
Goldberg has also been criticized for defending American Federation for Teachers President Randi Weingarten, whose union had a hand in slow-walking the reopening of schools in uncovered correspondence with the CDC. Weingarten has repeatedly claimed she'd long called for the reopening of schools.
HBO screengrab of Bari Weiss on 'Real Time with Bill Maher' Friday, Jan. 21, 2022. / CNN anchor Jim Acosta (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP Newsroom/ HBO 'Real Time with Bill maher')
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Several liberal media personalities were more blunt and angrily responded to Weiss' "Real Time" appearance, calling her "selfish," "childish," and more.
"I’m done with that attitude," CNN's Jim Acosta said. "She needs to understand that trolling people to own the libs is not a sacrifice."
MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan also scolded Weiss in his rapid fire "60 Second Rant" segment on Sunday.
"My young children have handled this pandemic more maturely and less childishly than the likes of Bari Weiss who, I’m sorry, can’t go to as many indoor parties as she’d like to," he said.
MSNBC contributor and Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin weighed in on Twitter, accusing Weiss of having lost her "moral compass." Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali wrote an op-ed titled, "You’re over Covid? Congratulations. Covid doesn’t give a s---."
U.S. President Joe Biden visits teacher Allison Hessemer’s pre-Kindergarten class at East End Elementary School to highlight the early childhood education proposal in his Build Back Better infrastructure agenda in North Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S. October 25, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
On "The View" Monday, co-host Sara Haines also scolded the Maher segment and said she may never again feel comfortable indoors without a mask.
Other progressive pundits and guests have called for an extension of mask mandates for school children or supported more lockdowns across the country, which has prompted critics to accuse them of wanting a "permanent pandemic."
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But some in the press have had a change of heart on strict COVID policies as the U.S. marks two years since its first reported case. CBS anchor Gayle King, for instance, recently told "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" earlier this month that she's "so tired" of being afraid of the virus and facing the threat of being locked down.
"I think we all have got to figure out how we can live our lives and navigate it," she said. "I would much rather run down Times Square buck naked than go back home."
MSNBC's Chris Hayes, meanwhile, recently touched upon the "sheer exhaustion" of Americans as the pandemic became increasingly political.
"The risk went from something that we hadn’t really dealt with specifically like this before in our lifetimes – we hadn't quite had an illness this infectious and this possible to cause serious illness – to something that does look more like the flu. The flu of course can still be dangerous … but we don't orient our lives around the flu," he said.