Can Anyone Give A Perspective On How Rural TX Press Has Reported on the Pandemic (El Paso: home)

[jt33tx]

Can any rural Texans give us an idea on how the rural Texas press in small towns have reported on the coronavirus pandemic? The big city press, tv, online, newspapers have done a good job on giving us the facts about the pandemic in TX, whether or not those fact portray Texas being in a very bad situation. They have given case numbers, numbers of those tested, hospitalization numbers, icu and ventilator usage, percentage of those tested positive. All are facts and all of them together portray the state of the pandemic is Texas.


I am wondering how the rural press in smaller towns in West Texas, Panhandle, East Texas, is reporting on the pandemic. I know most of rural TX is conservative and I would like to know is such a fact effecting the way that the rural TX press is reporting on the pandemic. I know one small rural West TX town's press that has decided instead of just reporting the facts/numbers it has decided to not report new cases, misrepresent the covid19 county numbers, and basically be in lock-step with the county leaders on its opinion to minimize the prevalence of covid19 in the county. Even the counties one death has been reported in a manipulative manner. Here is the headline from the local paper for the covid death:



" 70-year-old who tested positive for coronavirus dies; Was being treated for another illness"



The state listed it as a covid19 death and in doing so the hospital would of had to list it as a covid19 death and even if the county did not want to list it as covid19 death it had which is why the state lists it as a covid19 death. And what is worse is the local press tries to insinuate that the person did not die of covid19, but of another illness he was being treated for. Yet, the local paper who should just report the facts, gives this kind of headline. The short article is worse.


“County Judge Joe Schuster says the person who died tested negative in Pecos County. He was then transferred to a behavioral facility in Plainview. It was in Plainview five days later that the man tested positive for COVID-19. He was at the Plainview facility up until the time of his death."



As you can see the Judge is trying to insinuate that this 70 yr old got infected in Plainview, not in Pecos County. And of course the local paper did not push back and question the Judge at all. Why did the press not contact Plainview or ask for further info on this so-called negative test such as when was the deceased tested in Pecos County, how many days passed when he tested negative in Pecos County and when he was transferred? Was he ill while he was in Pecos County? Why was he tested in Pecos County to begin with and where was he tested? Was he in the local hospital or ER? Instead the local press just takes the Judge's word for it and prints it. Over the past 7 weeks there have been many more examples of the local press holding back information, downplaying the pandemic in the county, and basically just being a mouth piece for the county trying to convince the local public covid19 is not a threat to the community even though the state lists the county with 153 cases about 10 new over the last week, which by the way the paper has not reported on. All they report on is recovery numbers for the county. The headline every covid report with touting the counties recovery numbers.

I would just like to know if any of the rural press in other Texas small towns is skewing its coverage due to the politics of the local government, residents, or owners of the local press itself. I have seen a few other small town print press and the ones I saw have pretty much just stuck to the facts.




https://www.fortstocktonpioneer.com/...-illness,25910

[jt33tx]

Update: In Pecos County today another 11 cases of covid19 have occurred. A very large number for the county. The Fort Stockton Pioneer Newspaper has not reported or listed these new cases.

[ScoPro]

Just a thought....

Maybe the Fort Stockton Pioneer hasn’t reported it yet because the paper is only published on Thursdays, and you just said the Pecos County cases were “today”.... Friday the 17th.

Check the next edition this coming Thursday?

Good luck out there.

[jt33tx]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

Just a thought....

Maybe the Fort Stockton Pioneer hasn’t reported it yet because the paper is only published on Thursdays, and you just said the Pecos County cases were “today”.... Friday the 17th.

Check the next edition this coming Thursday?

Good luck out there.

The paper is published weekly, but their news website is updated daily. Not only that the county does a regular live facebook covid19 update hand in hand with the Pioneer yet they never reveal new daily numbers online or the county live update. Finally, 2 days ago they reported on 4 new cases, but over the past 2 weeks the county has had at least 20+ other new cases. On Friday the state and other sites keeping track reported 11 new cases for July 17th and there had already been reported on the state site and others 5 more cases prior to the Friday's reporting of 11 new cases, so 16 new cases from Monday to Saturday. Yet the Pioneer only reported 4 new cases on Saturday. The 4 are all from the local retirement home. My guess is they reported these 4 cases because there was no way they could keep them quiet. Get this the county claims that these 4 elderly retirement home resients infections came from an unknown source. What! They live there and no visitors are allowed yet the county claims they have no idea how they got infected. The county and Pioneer has not reported all new cases because that would show the county residents that covid19 is very active in the county and is spreading in the community. The county and Pioneer believe that being honest about covid19 spreading would keep people from patronizing local businesses. They want to keep the local economy fully opened at the expense of the peoples health. And I can understand them wanting to protect the local economy and local businesses, but if the virus gets out of control in the county the local economy and businesses will suffer much, much more. Not only that many people will get sick and the one small rural hospital in the county is not up to the task of dealing with this problem. Also the closest large hospitals are not taking patients from other counties for the time being.


I also find it odd that such a small populated county would have so many of the cases categorized as out-of-county cases. Close to 40 of the counties cases have been marked by the county as out-of-county cases. Meaning that these people who got tested and got sick within Pecos county were labelled by the county that they are from other areas. This is odd because a lot of these people live in the county. The county will claim they are from El Paso, Harris co , Hildalgo co., Arizona,on and on. Why would a person from Arizona stop and get tested in Pecos county? Now Fort Stockton has 2 prisons and most of the workers are initially from out of town, but they are now residents of the county. And as we know a lot of them fell ill to covid19. The county is dead set on not having their total active cases go over 20 because they would have to roll back the opening. Actually the county was caught not counting or notifying the public that the prisons had dozens of cases. Not until someone contacted them and informed them that every database in the state showed Pecos county with 100 cases (at the time). The county was afraid that the state would make them add the prison cases to the counties total case count. Even so the county was telling the residents there was under 20 cases. Then suddenly they claimed they had no idea about the new prison cases until one late Friday night. But this went against the claim made by the county in April that they were in regular contact with local prison officials about ongoing cases. The paper updated its news on the following Monday that the prison informed the county late Friday night about the cases. What a surprise because early Monday morning someone contacted the paper and informed them that these cases were already being counted by the state as the were piling up over the past 10 days. My guess is if the paper had not been called out by someone who contacted them Monday morning they would of kept playing dumb.



My guess is they are doing anything they can to keep the true case #s from the public. There is no mask enforcement and the county acts as if all is well. But over the past 3 weeks more and more cases are turning up. Now in Ft Stockton the local retirement home is dealing with an outbreak with several new cases. The prison has about 70 cases. And the public does not know the details regarding about 20 other new cases over the past 12 days because the county has not informed the public and the Pioneer has not informed the public. But the TX DHSH board and others such as worldometer, NY times, all keep showing growing numbers for Pecos county.