NY Times Blames Sean Hannity for Bar Owner Coronavirus Death, but Timeline Bungled and Ignores Reporter’s Own Tweet
Ginia Bellafonte blamed Hannity and Fox News for inducing bar owner to take fateful vacation on March 1, but Hannity statement at issue was a week later, and in late February, Bellafonte herself tweeted for people not to worry about the virus.
Brooklyn bar owner Joe Joyce passed away on April 9 of the Wuhan coronavirus. Ginia Bellafonte at The New York Times tried so hard to blame Fox News (specifically Sean Hannity) for Joyce’s death because he went on a cruise on March 1. Supposedly Joyce decided to go ahead with his plans because Hannity downplayed the virus.
The hatred for Fox News blinded Bellafonte because she made two basic mistakes, which caused her editors to fix her piece. Oh, they did not add an “editor’s note” at the bottom.
The two problems: Joyce went on his cruise on March 1, but Bellafonte quoted remarks from Hannity on March 8. Bellafonte forgot she didn’t take the virus seriously around the same time.
Bellafonte Hypocrisy
We have seen this happen too many times. I’ve lost count but it shows the arrogance of those in the mainstream media. People in the mainstream media complain that Republicans and President Donald Trump did not take the Wuhan coronavirus seriously when it broke out in China. Yet when you look at their old tweets and news pieces you will see that they casually brushed aside the virus.
Bellafonte tried to convince her audience that Hannity influenced Joyce’s to go on his cruise instead of canceling. This is from the non-edited version, courtesy of Breitbart:
On March 1, Joe Joyce and his wife, Jane, set sail for Spain on a cruise, flying first to Florida. His adult children — Kevin, Eddie and Kristen Mider — suggested that the impending doom of the coronavirus made this a bad idea. Joe Joyce was 74, a nonsmoker, healthy; four years after he opened his bar he stopped drinking completely. He didn’t see the problem.
“He watched Fox, and believed it was under control,’’ Kristen told me.
Early in March Sean Hannity went on air proclaiming that he didn’t like the way that the American people were getting scared “unnecessarily.’’ He saw it all, he said, “as like, let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax.”
Eventually, Fox changed course and took the virus more seriously, but the Joyces were long gone by then. On March 14, they returned to New York from Barcelona, and the next day, before bars and restaurants were forced to close in the city, Joe Joyce went to work at JJ Bubbles for the last time.
He and his wife then headed to their house in New Hampshire. Their children were checking in from New York and New Jersey, and on March 27, when Kristen got off the phone with her father, she called an ambulance. He was wheezing. His oxygen level turned out to be a dangerously low 70 percent. On April 9, he died of Covid-19.
I present to you the Hannity segment from March 9 (He uploaded the video on March 10) in its entirety.
Hannity spoke with Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) as he kept himself in quarantine after he came into contact with someone at CPAC who has the virus.
Hannity said:
We gotta be very real with the American people, I don’t like how we’re scaring people unnecessarily. And that is that unless you have an immune system that is compromised, and you are older, and you have other underlying health issues you’re not going to die 99% from this virus, correct?
—
Alright so that’s the point, I mean they’re scaring the living hell out of people. And I see I seeing them again as like oh, okay, let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax
AG on Twitter pointed out that three days before Joyce took his cruise Bellafonte rolled her eyes at this virus from China.
Plus, as AG points out, we have no idea if Joyce contracted the coronavirus on the cruise or when he returned to NYC.
Wow.
So NYT printed a piece that blamed Fox News for the COVID-19 death of a NY bar owner who went on a cruise on 3/1 based on a Hannity quote downplaying the virus on 3/8. Meanwhile, the author of that piece, @GiniaNYT, was downplaying it on 2/27.
(h/t @ComfortablySmug) pic.twitter.com/wGJBpnoQ9F
— (((AG))) (@AGHamilton29) April 19, 2020
Two devastating tweets. The NYT’s fixation w/ exploiting a deadly pandemic & personal tragedy in order to attack another news outlet is ghastly. The glaring error is humiliating. The reporter’s hypocrisy is extraordinary. Every person responsible for this trash should be ashamed. https://t.co/pTSfVMfoMJ
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 19, 2020
All the Propaganda That’s Fit to Print.
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) April 19, 2020
NYT Changes Bellafonte’s Piece
Joel Pollak at Breitbart noticed the change in Bellafonte’s piece. I know I pasted the original portion above, but here it is again:
On March 1, Joe Joyce and his wife, Jane, set sail for Spain on a cruise, flying first to Florida. His adult children — Kevin, Eddie and Kristen Mider — suggested that the impending doom of the coronavirus made this a bad idea. Joe Joyce was 74, a nonsmoker, healthy; four years after he opened his bar he stopped drinking completely. He didn’t see the problem.
“He watched Fox, and believed it was under control,’’ Kristen told me.
Early in March Sean Hannity went on air proclaiming that he didn’t like the way that the American people were getting scared “unnecessarily.’’ He saw it all, he said, “as like, let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax.”
Eventually, Fox changed course and took the virus more seriously, but the Joyces were long gone by then. On March 14, they returned to New York from Barcelona, and the next day, before bars and restaurants were forced to close in the city, Joe Joyce went to work at JJ Bubbles for the last time.
He and his wife then headed to their house in New Hampshire. Their children were checking in from New York and New Jersey, and on March 27, when Kristen got off the phone with her father, she called an ambulance. He was wheezing. His oxygen level turned out to be a dangerously low 70 percent. On April 9, he died of Covid-19.
Pollak noticed this small, but significant change in one of those paragraphs (his emphasis, my italics):
Eventually, Fox changed course and took the virus more seriously, but the Joyces were long gone by then. A spokeswoman for Fox News said that Mr. Hannity made statements taking the spread of coronavirus seriously early on, and that his comment about the public being scared by the coverage happened after the Joyces had left on their cruise.
An outlet usually adds a mark in the post that the editors changed or updated a portion. None of that in Bellafonte’s piece.
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Comments
Wait–Joy is a “he”?
I don’t know, the article says “Joe”
On March 1, Joe Joyce and his wife, Jane, set sail for Spain on a cruise,
So who is Joy?
Mary, you might want to fix that. It is Joe not Joy, but hey, never know these days. Instapundit has it covered pretty good too. Was trying to research more on this.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/366877/
UPDATE: The author of the Times article is Ginia Bellafante. In addition to the quote above, she goes on about Fox News coverage that took place *after* the man left on his cruise, which obviously could not have influenced him. Meanwhile, some Twitter sleuths have discovered her tweet below, which was in response to the stock market’s drop the previous day. I think it’s fair at this point to say that Ms. Ballafonte is personally responsible for every Coronavirus death in New York.
Fixed, thanks!
It simply no longer matters what the msm does or says. They will not be held accountable for it. They get the facts wrong so often that no one believes anything they say until it can be verified by another trusted source. There is nothing the public can do about this until Congress is in the hands of the GOP again. Then, with some backbones, they might be able to pass a law that puts some responsibility on the press and offers punishment for the owners and the individuals who print/air it.
they might be able to pass a law that puts some responsibility on the press and offers punishment for the owners and the individuals who print/air it.
This would tread perilously close to the Sedition Act of 1798 and the other one of 1918.
Neither are ever considered laudable zeniths of the American Experiment.
And, once a law is in place, we know perfectly well that it will subsequently be perverted and abused by the D’rats. They’re destructive enough without handing them more sledgehammers.
Obviously prior restraint of specific article is not on the table. Perhaps a bit of creativity is required. How about all entities that transmit over broadband are subject to after the fact correction rule? Nothing onerous, just take the AP style book for cor handling corrections. Perhaps the individual reporter and editor who allow factually incorrect, when the facts are available, articles to be published must attend a mandatory stand down for a week of retraining in some simple agreed upon journalistic standards?
Any such law would brazenly violate the first amendment.
I disagree that this proposal would blatantly violate 1st Amendment. It doesn’t call for prior restraint. It simply envisions that journalists report the available facts when they choose to report on a particular topic.
When they do not do so it envisions a temporary period when they couldn’t act as journalists until the completion of retraining. This doesn’t call for shuttering the entire staff of the offending entity.
After all, my ‘right to counsel’ doesn’t override the bar association disciplining my preferred attorney by suspending his ability to practice.
The whole point of the 1st Amendment pertaining to a free press is so that the truth can be published, not hidden away when convenient. All this proposal does is ask journalists to report the known facts. When we don’t expect journalists to do so we have, IMO, strayed far away from a reasonable interpretation of the 1st Amendment, IMO.
I am happy to be corrected from this viewpoint with a reasoned argument.
This brazenly defies the first amendment.
What has that got to do with it?
Since the Supreme Court eviscerated the Privileges and Immunities clause, there is no constitutional right to practice law. Therefore states can regulate who does so. Since “journalism” consists entirely of speech, states cannot regulate who “practices” it. Indeed, even in the professions they can license and regulate, they can’t prevent someone from giving information in those fields in a private capacity; in other words stating facts about the law or medicine is not “practicing”, and doesn’t need a license.
There is nothing in the first amendment about “a free press”. There is “the freedom of the press”, which means the right of any person to publish what he likes, just as the “freedom of speech” is the right of any person to say what he likes. It’s got nothing to do with the newspaper trade as such. But it does mean that the publishers of newspapers cannot be regulated, because publishing things is all they do.
But we can’t do that, any more than we can “ask” it of you or me, or of those commenters on this blog who regularly “report” falsehoods and fantasies. You and I can ask them to stick to the truth, and the blog owner can certainly do so, though he chooses not to, but the government cannot stick its nose in.
The exact opposite is true. “Journalists” are the same as you and me; they have no more rights than us, and no fewer. And you would be appalled at being made to justify whatever you wrote to some policeman.
Have you been awake for the last few years? No one cares about the Bill of Rights anymore.
Milhouse,
Maybe I am slow today but I don’t believe your arguments hold against my proposal.
1. The proposal includes news reporters, and news editors.
2. The proposal excludes all opinion writers, columnist etc. They can and should be able to write what they choose as long as that writing is presented as an opinion.
3. The proposal includes news reports presented via broadband.
4. The proposal excludes news reports not presented via broadband.
5. The FCC can regulate broadband.
6. The news reporters and their publication would agree or decline to be included in the proposal.
7. Those who choose not to be included would still be able to publish in print, just not in digital format.
That made clear, are you staying that the development and mostly voluntary application of rules of conduct by a professional group is unconstitutional? This proposal is less restrictive than twitter.
Here’s the flaw in your proposal. No, it can’t. Internet bandwidth is not a public resource, it’s not limited by nature, so the FCC has no authority to regulate it.
Publication in digital format is not less protected than publication in print. Nor is news less protected than opinion, even if they could be reliably distinguished.
The development and completely voluntary application of rules of conduct by a professional group is certainly not unconstitutional. Professional groups are not bound by the constitution. But it is unconstitutional for the government to enforce those rules.
Require corrections and retractions on front page of newspaper and first part of broadcast .
Ah, yes…The 1918 law so loved by Woodrow Wilson. No one has challenged the Left to say how President H. Clinton would have handled this pandedmic. just how chummy would her administration have been with WHO and CCP to jump earlier on travel bans?
And make them do that for a whole month of 30 days.
Making it so there isn’t a separate standard for libel or slander against a public figure would be a good start,
The other thing not mention here or the NYTimes was that Spain was criticized for not taking the Corona virus seriously while Italy was locking down. Some is Spain said they were in denial, util the number of deaths took a jump.
Anyone the belives anything in the New Dork SLimes deserves what they get.
Old news … more of the same old s_it from the mainstream media.
My take is that they (the MSM) is a one-trick pony, and everyone has seen its trick.
Those who hate Trump will believe anything and everything the MSM says about COVID-19, Trump, or anything else that makes the right side of the political spectrum look bad. It doesn’t matter how outlandish or how false.
Those who do not hate Trump simply ignore all of this B.S.
Blah, blah, blah, Orange Man bad, blah, blah, blah.
In my view, what the MSM says about anything is irrelevant.
End of story
The real problem is not the propaganda organs like the NYSlimes, it is the people that read it and believe it.
Of course. People are socialized to believe authorities they grew up believing.
The problem is the corruption of the media – and by no less than an enemy foreign power like Communist China.
Another lying c*nt from the NYT. I’m shocked!
It’s all counter-programming. It’s useful for the MSM and (D) politicians to downplay the virus when Republicans are taking appropriate actions. It’s also useful *now* to claim Republicans didn’t do enough early enough which was roundly mocked by these same people at the time.
Editing and fact checking is supposed to occur before a piece is posted / printed not after the fact.
I am constantly amazed with the pseudo-intellectual Left’s sick obsession with Fox News. As a logical, rational person, I don’t understand why it should be considered a debate argument that “that’s just a RW talking point from Fox (or Breitbart)!”
Well I read the piece in the link above. The majority of the piece was not bad, but obviously slanted to tell the story like Joe was a good guy and he helped everyone. Kinda like he was a liberal in disguise. Helping local theater group and gay people.
It is becoming obvious that Generation Snowflakes are a bunch of flaming idiots.
Here is a comment on the page:
My Dad, with a PhD in plant science, was a climate change denier. It was the only thing we ever argued about. He died before he got to see the impact of his beliefs. I am sad he was made a fool of, sad we argued, but at least it didn’t kill him.
This snowflake doesn’t know what a fool is.
As for Bellafonte, her claim to fame is “FASHION CRITIC”
Ginia Versace?
Bet Ginia has a side gig with MSDNC also.
MSNBC: Protesters Who Want to Open Economy Are Racist, ‘Want To See More Black And Brown People Die
https://www.weaselzippers.us/447375-msnbc-protesters-who-want-to-open-economy-are-racist-want-to-see-more-black-and-brown-people-die/
What mental disease causes a reporter to be so obsessed with hatred that she creates out of nothing a story that has absolutely no factual basis, not an iota of fact, but is likely as real as the day is long to this individual?
It’s called evil.
The basis of all evil is selfishness and greed!
The NYT writer’s name is spelled Bellafante.
So, what we are left with is that Bellafonte is not only a liar, but an incompetent liar and propagandist. Her family and friends must be embarrassed and humiliated by both her lack of ethics and lack of competence. Just kidding, if they are “progressives” as well, they will ignore this. The rest of us, with ethics and open minds, should not. We can no longer be kind and polite to people like Ms. Bellafone who intentionally try to mislead us. She should pay a social price for her anti-social behavior. We know that the NYT thinks she did a good job as a propagandist and won’t even call her out on this.
Is Gina Bellafonte the spawn of the very left wing Harry Bellafonte?
These are very, very warped people. Sociopathic, at this point.
In other words, they have no conscience, lie easily and ruthlessly.
Perfect communist genocidal maniacs. Just look at the dead eyes of that woman in the photo: the opposite of alexandra cortez’s maniacal pop-out eyes, which are just as murderous.
Psycopaths like in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho!!!!!!!!!
No, more like Pol Pot’s and Mao’s Red Guard.
“they might be able to pass a law that puts some responsibility on the press and offers punishment for the owners and the individuals who print/air it.”
If there were such a law then there’s be a black-box warning whenever anyone published anything about this virus, or on any other medical topic. And if there were, would we be any safer because of that?
Is it really necessary to say that if you need or want medical advice then you should consult a physician? If you truly thought you were making a life-or-death choice, would a reasonable person rely on something heard on the radio/TV/website?
Although if you had asked a physician on March 1 about the advisability of going on a cruise, the physician would probably say that not enough was known yet to quantify the risk other than to say it was non-zero, and then ask you to make your own risk-vs-benefit decision.
Just change the goddam defamation laws to allow common-sense relief for people defamed by media.
Allow for attorney fees, so baseless lawsuits will be punished.
Better yet bring back dueling as an alternative to a defamation/libel/slander suit at plaintiffs option…
You’d need to fix the stupid “public person” exception to libel/slander SCOTUS dreamed up.
randian,
Good point. All persons refusing when challenged have proven themselves unfit to hold an office of public trust, appointed or elected. Nor may they be employed by any entity receiving public funds or which uses public airwaves.
I mean Hell if we actually could get dueling reinstated we may as well do it correctly and go all out.
Dueling has never been legal. It used to be socially accepted anyway, mostly because until about the 1840s it was relatively safe, and because most challenges were settled without an actual duel.
Another SCUMBERGER TIMES media whore–she must be angling for a job with Columbia University’s Fake Journalism School.
had to double check, and it was a cruise, you have to be seriously warped to take cruise, not even talking about the Wuhan virus, research back about all the various ‘virus’ that infect cruise ships, that is when the cruise goes a well as can be expected
I believe it was too many people like her that caused the fall of Rome.