The Patriot Post® · Another WaPo Clickbait Fake News Fail

Earlier this week in an interview with The Washington Post, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield raised concerns that a likely second wave of COVID-19 infections would create a strain on medical services because that would coincide with the regular flu season.

The WaPo and its echo-chamber Leftmedia outlets then published versions of WaPo’s sensational headline: “CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating.” They did so wantonly taking what Dr. Redfield actually said out of context — his point being that people should get their flu shots.

This was a typical case study in crafting titles that generate more click-throughs in order to enhance advertising sales.

To correct the record regarding WaPo’s clickbait, Dr. Redfield said, “I think it’s really important to emphasize what I didn’t say.”

He noted: “I didn’t say [CV19] was going to be worse. I said it was going to be more difficult and potentially complicated, because we’ll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time. We will continue to build the nation’s public health infrastructure to ensure we have the capacity to stay in containment mode. … The key to my comments and the reason I really wanted to stress them was to appeal to the American public to embrace the flu vaccine with confidence. One of the greatest tools we have as we go through the fall-winter season that we’re into is to get the American public to embrace the influenza vaccine and thereby minimize the impact of flu to be the co-respiratory disease we confront.”

However, for WaPo and its parroting print media, “CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating” was much more effective as clickbait than “Get your flu shot next fall.”