Birx: News headlines are "very slicey and dicey" on coronavirus coverage
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Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, said Saturday on Fox News that the media needs to be "responsible" about its headlines while covering the coronavirus crisis, noting that most people don't read the full story.
Why it matters: President Trump, while speaking at White House coronavirus briefings, has accused reporters of being "fake news" and asked for more favorable coverage on the administration's response to the pandemic.
What she's saying: "I think the media is very slicey and dicey about how they put sentences together in order to create headlines. We know, for millennials and other studies, that some people may only read the headlines and if there's not a graphic, they're not going to look any further than that," Birx said on Saturday.
- "We have to be responsible about our headlines. I think often the reporting may be accurate in paragraph three, four, and five, but I'm not sure how many people actually get to paragraph three, four and five. And I think the responsibility that the press has is to really ensure that the headlines reflect the science and data that is in their piece itself," she said.
The big picture: Birx said that the White House task force believes hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths caused by the virus "will be dramatically decreased by the end of May." She noted that cases "are a different issue" as testing expands into more communities and more cases are identified.
Go deeper: CDC director attempts to clarify "second wave" remarks after Trump backlash
