Frontline traces start of COVID-19 crisis in America, telling a tale of two Washingtons
ErikWemple Retweeted
Frontline traces start of COVID-19 crisis in America, telling a powerful tale of two Washingtons | COMMENTARY
DAVID ZURAWIK | COLUMNISTS | OPINION
Frontline traces start of COVID-19 crisis in America, telling a tale of two Washingtons | COMMENTARY
By DAVID ZURAWIK
BALTIMORE SUN | APR 17, 2020 | 5:51 PM
It has been a punishing week for the White House as some of the biggest guns in American journalism have taken aim at President Trumps failed leadership in the COVID-19 crisis.
The reckoning started last weekend with a major piece from The New York Times titled He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trumps Failure on the Virus. NPR followed up Monday with a Morning Edition report titled, A Month After Emergency Declaration, Trumps Promises Largely Unfulfilled." Its a devastating catalog of promises made, promises not kept by the president of the United States.
And now comes Frontline, the PBS powerhouse of investigations and long-form TV journalism, with a report debuting Tuesday night titled Coronavirus Pandemic. The guns here are not primarily trained on Trump and his inner circle of decision makers. Frontline clearly set out first and foremost to chronicle the history of the virus that has torn up American life as we knew it. But in telling the story of the the first known COVID-19 patient and how the virus came to Washington State in January, Frontline could not help but also document what was not being done in the other Washington as Trump ignored warnings from health experts and then publicly denied the massive threat to human life and the American economy that the virus posed.
Frontline nails Trumps negligence with its contextualized timeline and video of the presidents own words. But the real power of this documentary comes from going back and retracing the steps of Patient One in the U.S., and talking to the doctor who treated him, Dr. George Diaz, as well as an array of health experts and political leaders in the Seattle area.
{snip}
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/