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American journalist Bob Woodward writes in his new book “Rage” that US President Donald Trump knew since February that the new coronavirus was more deadly than he ever publicly admitted.
Seven months after the revelations, the journalist is being criticized by the journalistic class for hiding the statements for so long, advance “Newsweek”, “Associated Press”, “ABC News” and “CNBC”.
It was known that the journalist revealed in the Washington Post with Carl Bernstein the scandal Watergate in 1972, prompting the resignation of Republican President Richard Nixon.
The revelations came yesterday after Woodward shared a phone conversation with Trump on February 7, with colleagues at The Washington Post, where he is an associate editor, and with CNN. Donald Trump admitted to the veteran journalist that the virus was “deadly”, “contagious” and “much more dangerous than a simple cold.” Days after declaring a national emergency, the president explained to the journalist that he publicly devalued Covid-19 so as not to generate mass panic.
Many of the criticisms that have emerged on social media are directed at Woodward and many are from journalists, who agree that the conversation should not have been shelved for seven months to sell more books.
“Could things have been different if Trump supporters had known all along that Covid was a serious threat? Woodward could have made it happen in February, ”said the reporter from the investigative site ProPublica, quoted by NBC.
Former Washington BuzzFeed editor John Stanton admits that “there is no ethical or moral defense for Woodward’s decision not to release the recordings when they were made.” “If there was any chance that he could save a life, he had to. Bob Woodward chose to earn money rather than his moral and professional duty. “
“The Atlethic” sportswriter Kyle Tucker added a “new angle” to the story he made today. “Simultaneously, Woodward did a great service to the nation by registering the fraud and a huge no service by not disclosing the statements for several months, to have it exclusive in a book, while thousands of people died,” he writes on the social network Twitter.
In response to Tucker, “Oklahoman” sportswriter Jacob Unruh also wrote on Twitter that he respects Bob Woodward “very, very, very,” but that “keeping this information just to sell a book is not good.” Journalist Jon Alba also wrote on Twitter that “Bob Woodward is a journalistic icon, but he waits six weeks before the election to reveal information (including recordings) that, in a normal world, would drastically alter the race, to increase publicity for a book is not done ”.
According to data from US health authorities, the first death from the virus is estimated to have occurred in late January, while infections only began to show signs in February. As of Thursday, September 10, the United States registered a total of 6,376,425 detected cases of Covid-19 and 190,869 deaths caused by the virus.
Woodward Defense
Speaking to some newspapers, the journalist who caused Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974 admitted sitting down to listen to Trump and at the same time wondering about the veracity of the statements that have now been made public. “Wow, this is interesting, but is it true? Trump says things that are not true, right? “He also told the Associated Press in a telephone conversation.
Still speaking to the Associated Press, Woodward explained that his mission was to determine “what he [Trump] You knew it and when you knew it ”, in order to make a timeline to understand more details of the story.
“If he had published the story at that time, about what he knew in February, that wouldn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know.” According to the publication, the central issue no longer involved the public health of US citizens but politics, with the journalist’s priority being to change to begin spreading the story before the November elections, affecting the polls for the current president.
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