The Astounding Difference In Media Coverage Over Blue States Ending Mask Mandates Versus Florida

Not The Bee, the news outlet that publishes headlines just as absurd as its parody counterpart The Babylon Bee (but are depressingly true), ran an impressive string of tweets that highlights how political Cvoid is and always has been. It has never been about science. Only power and control.

Twitter user Drew Holden, who “is known for his extensive threads documenting liberal media hypocrisy,” provides the side-by-side shots of headlines when discussing Florida’s earlier end to mask mandates and blue states’ more recent end. Both always followed the same science – you know, the one that says kids aren’t at risk from or of spreading Covid – but the former was hammered by fear-mongering tyrants while the latter were praised for adapting to the virus. The gaslighting is incredible.

As Not The Bee writes: 

“This is an intense and well-documented exposé of the media and their treatment of Ron DeSantis and other Republicans removing mask mandates, vs. blue states doing the exact same thing a few months later.

The difference in coverage is staggering, but not shocking.”

Take a look for yourself.

You may remember that, when DeSantis banned mandates, @CNN put together a heart-wrenching story about how even 12 year old kids knew that masks were necessary in schools.

But when it isn’t Florida allowing kids to be unmasked, we just get the facts.

Why the change? pic.twitter.com/S9aqWPqLLa

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

Over at @CNNPolitics, the same agitprop story got recycled in Florida.

But now? We’re told “Democratic governors outpace the White House with masking pullbacks.”

Oddly, I don’t recall the term “outpace” being used about DeSantis. pic.twitter.com/triNfLPuwH

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

We saw the same thing out of @CBSNews. When it was Florida allowing kids to go to school unmasked, we had viral letters urging mandates.

But now? Apparently these things no longer go viral. pic.twitter.com/6MvKbhyUNp

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

Again. Where are the feature stories on distraught children who are no longer going to be forced to wear masks in these states, @TODAYshow? pic.twitter.com/Zpb8Mt702f

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

Perhaps my favorite about-face was from @BusinessInsider, who ran a piece about how 3 teachers in Florida died from Covid *during their summer vacation* as a scare story but now it’s Biden who’s in the wrong for “getting left behind by his own party” as blue states lift mandates. pic.twitter.com/OicahXyy9I

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

And we saw the same thing from @nytimes.

In Florida, the story is about the angry school boards. Not so when “several Democratic governors” end mandates – then it’s all about the good reasons they’ve offered for their decisions. pic.twitter.com/rm8wYznbST

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

The criticism of DeSantis (predominantly) wasn’t that he’d overstepped his authority; it was that he was going to get kids killed b/c schools won’t require masks.

Take @PressSec. Her worry about a world where “there were not masks in elementary school” is curiously absent now. pic.twitter.com/g2qfK2PXuX

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

And throughout all this, it was never just DeSantis. @MSNBC worked themselves into a hysteria about @GovernorVA doing something similar merely two weeks ago.

But when blue New Jersey does away with masks? Oddly, the anger is absent. pic.twitter.com/iQMZPFpR4F

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

But back to DeSantis.@ABC treated schools in Florida as if they were Berlin during the US airlift when DeSantis banned mask mandates.

Now the story is far simpler: states change rules. That’s it. pic.twitter.com/yaqoJYgzVt

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

@therecountput together a full timetable of “the pandemic problem child” Florida’s decision making around masks and schools.

But over in New Jersey, the state with the third-most deaths per capita (a full 15 spots ahead of Florida” instead it’s just “mandate no more.” pic.twitter.com/xqWxQnS4Nv

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) February 11, 2022

What more proof do we need that these people are evil liars?