Broadcast and cable news are grappling with their live coverage of President Trump's daily coronavirus briefings

Vanity Fair

"The COVID-19 briefings themselves have become a grim Trumpian sideshow to the catastrophic public health emergency that is sweeping the globe, and intensifying in the United States as new cases and deaths mount by the hour," explain Joe Pompeo and Michael Calderone. "Media organizations are grappling with how to cover them, given both their factually challenged content and the notion that they are, in some sense, not unlike Trump campaign events, a replacement while his rallies are on pause. Over the past week and a half, during these televised press conferences meant to inform and reassure the public, Trump has misstated the availability of testing, embellished the use of an antiviral drug, rated his waffling pandemic response a '10,' made a seemingly glib remark about Mitt Romney being in self-quarantine, bashed the media at large, and lashed out at an NBC News reporter simply for asking what the president would say to Americans who are scared." He adds: "Monday’s marathon seems to have been something of an inflection point. All the broadcast and cable networks began carrying it live, but NBC, CBS, and ABC switched to their regular evening newscasts after about 20 minutes, while CNN and MSNBC cut out after the presser had carried on for a little over an hour. Fox News stuck it out until the end." ALSO: Trump's daily briefings are like his rallies -- they misinform and undermine public health officials.