New Yorker: “Over the coming weeks and months, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues on its destructive path, it will alter the fabric of the country. Already, the disease has exposed the fragility of the American health-care system, highlighting its weak points, showing us where it is easily overwhelmed. It will do the same for other systems, including the media ecosystem. The question at this point is how much of it can survive, and how it might be rebuilt.”

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“The White House Correspondents Association on Wednesday voted to remove One America News, a small right-wing media organization, from the rotation for a seat in the briefing room, an extraordinary rebuke of the network for violating social distancing guidelines put into place to protect the health of its members,” CNN reports.

“The decision was made after a fringe personality for the far-right media outlet, Chanel Rion, continued to attend the briefings, in defiance of the WHCA’s new rules limiting the number of journalists in the room.”

New York Times: The pro-Trump media’s coronavirus distortion.

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, the brother of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has been diagnosed with coronavirus, CNN reports.

He is feeling well and will continue to anchor his 9 p.m. program from his home.

Gov. Cuomo confirmed the diagnosis at his press briefing: “He is going to be fine. He’s young, in good shape, strong, not as strong as he thinks, but he will be fine.”

“CNN chief Jeff Zucker on Monday defended the network’s decision to carry President Trump’s coronavirus press briefings live despite criticism that he uses the conferences to spread misinformation during a pandemic,” the Daily Beast reports.

“Zucker argued on the staff call that it is important for viewers to hear critical information from the administration’s public-health experts like Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, and for the CNN audience to hear the president answer tough questions from journalists including the network’s own.”

“He did note that the network had pondered whether to air portions of the briefings after Trump finishes speaking, but said that he felt comfortable airing the briefings live because of those reporterly grillings.”

Gabriel Sherman: “When I’ve been talking to Fox insiders over the last few days, there’s a real concern inside the network that their early downplaying of the coronavirus actually exposes Fox News to potential legal action by viewers who maybe were misled and actually have died from this. I’ve heard Trish Regan’s being taken off the air is, you know, reflective of this concern that Fox News is in big trouble by downplaying this virus.”

“I think this is a case where Fox’s coverage, if it actually winds up being proved that people died because of it, this is a new terrain in terms of Fox being possibly held liable for their actions.”

BuzzFeed News calls the coronavirus pandemic “a media exctinction event” due to a freefall in advertising despite a precipitous rise in readership.

I can attest it’s true.

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In a poll shared on-air and on Twitter, Lou Dobbs asked Fox News viewers to rate President Trump’s leadership during the coronavirus pandemic and offered three ratings: “very good,” “great” and “superb.”

Vanity Fair: “Tucker Carlson started talking more extensively about the virus on his Fox News show on February 3, spurred, he says, by harrowing reports emerging from China. Trump, it seems, was the last to know. A White House adviser arranged for Carlson to meet with Trump so the TV personality could, in essence, penetrate Trump’s bubble. They talked for two hours. The oncoming pandemic, Carlson told him, was an existential threat to the nation. To translate it into Trumpian language, an existential threat to his reelection. Mike Pence joined at one point.”

“Carlson won’t discuss the president’s reaction on the record, but suffice it to say that Trump’s denial went on for another week while the pandemic ballooned and right-wing allies—many of them on Fox News—suggested the virus was a liberal hoax and members of Congress, as recently as three days ago, told people to continue going out in public as if nothing was happening.”

“For weeks, some of Fox News’s most popular hosts downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, characterizing it as a conspiracy by media organizations and Democrats to undermine President Trump,” the Washington Post reports.

“But that was then.”

“With Trump’s declaration on Friday that the virus constitutes a national emergency, the tone on Fox News has quickly shifted.”

“On his program on Friday, Hannity — the most watched figure on cable news — lauded the president’s handling of what the host is now, belatedly, referring to as a ‘crisis.'”