CNN Called COVID-19 ‘Chinese Coronavirus’ in January, Mainstream Media Says Trump is Bigoted When He Says Same Thing Today

 

CNN has been critical of President Donald Trump for blaming the Chinese for the coronavirus; however, the network referenced the coronavirus as “The Chinese Coronavirus” on Twitter on January 21.

“A new Chinese coronavirus, a cousin of the SARS virus, has infected more than 200 people since the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December. Scientist Leo Poon, who first decoded the virus, thinks it likely started in an animal and spread to humans,” CNN tweeted.

This tweet is the exact copy of the first paragraph in the story called “Coronavirus explained: What you need to know.”

Trump in tweets on Wednesday called the coronavirus the “Chinese Virus.”

Yes, Every Kid

Just last week, the network’s White House Correspondent Jim Acosta was critical of the president saying COVID-19 was a “foreign virus.”

“The president referred to the coronavirus as a ‘foreign virus,’ that I think was interesting because, I was talking to sources earlier this evening, one of the points that the president wanted to make tonight, wanted to get across to Americans, is that this virus did not start here, but that they’re dealing it,” Acosta said. “Now, why the president would go as far to describe it as a foreign virus, that is something we’ll also be asking questions about.”

“It is going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia,” he added.

However, in January Acosta called the COVID-19 virus the “Wuhan Coronavirus.”

Even though the network has been critical of the president blaming the Chinese, CNN’s anchors have commonly used phrases like “Wuhan” and “Chinese”to describe the virus.

Currently, the United States has a little over 9,000 cases of the Chinese coronavirus and 154 people have died from it, according to worldometers.info.

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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of Star News Digital Media. If you have any tips, email Zachery at [email protected].
Photo “CNN Center” by Josh Hallet. CC BY 2.0.

 

 

 

 

 

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5 Thoughts to “CNN Called COVID-19 ‘Chinese Coronavirus’ in January, Mainstream Media Says Trump is Bigoted When He Says Same Thing Today”

  1. […] it might be despite the fact that CNN even decided to call it the Chinese Coronavirus according to Zachery Schmidt of The Tennessee Star. Whoops, it’s funny how things get out on the internet, isn’t it? In any case, Dale […]

  2. T Bailey

    They called it that before it was officially named. Try research for once. Intentionally using some other name now smacks of jingoism. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it

    1. Meghann

      Yes! Thank you. Once it was officially termed COVID-19 they called it as such. To use it now just screams ignorance.

  3. Daniel Aquilina

    If people can’t tell the difference between early CNN reporting on the virus and Trump continually calling it the “China Virus”, you’re all idiots.

  4. joeknows

    Does anyone with half a brain watch CNN? One (of many) of the least reliable sources of information available to viewers.

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