PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor’s true passion, it seems, is policing speech.
On Friday, as President Trump and Surgeon General Jerome Adams spoke at a White House press briefing on the administration’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Alcindor took the news conference on a detour to complain about some of the language used at the podium.
Amazingly, she presented her complaint as asking a question on behalf of “some people online” who are “offended.” I say “amazingly,” because, by her own admission, she hijacked a coronavirus White House briefing to ask that an official tasked with heading the pandemic relief effort respond to some random, angry people on the internet.
At the very beginning of the briefing, Adams, who is black, delivered some prepared remarks, which included him urging African Americans and other communities of color to adhere closely to prevention guidelines designed to slow the spread of the virus. Communities of color, Adams explained, are being disproportionately affected by the disease.
“Let me be crystal clear,” he said. “We do not think people of color are biologically or genetically predisposed to get COVID-19. There’s nothing inherently wrong with you, but they are socially predisposed to coronavirus exposure, and they have higher estimates of the various applications of coronavirus.”
Therefore, he advised, members of communities of color should avoid certain substances that may compromise their immunities, thus making them more susceptible to the virus.
“Avoid alcohol, tobacco, and drugs,” Adams added. “We need you to do this if not for yourself, then for your Abuela. Do it for your granddaddy, do it for your big momma, do it for your pop-pop.”
About 15 minutes later, Alcindor, who never left the briefing room, pressed Adams to speak to “people” who say his comments about “big momma” and avoiding alcohol and tobacco are offensive.
“There are some people online that are already offended by that language and the idea that you’re saying behaviors might be leading to these high death rates,” she said.
She added, “Could you talk about whether or not — I guess have a response to the people that might be offended by the language that you used?”
Adams explained, “We need targeted outreach to the African American community and I use the language that is used in my family. I have a Puerto Rican brother-in-law. I call my granddaddy, ‘granddaddy.’ I have relatives who call their grandparents ‘big momma.’ So that is not meant to be offensive.”
He added that he “absolutely” recommends that everyone — black, brown, and white — avoid tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. It is really a shame he did not respond by asking her whether she wanted him to say, “Never mind, as surgeon general I now declare that smoking is actually good for you.”
Alcindor tweeted later in defense of her question that “some will find [Adams’s] language offensive” and that “many found this language highly offensive.”
The PBS reporter, of course, never left the briefing room, so she never talked to “people.” It was roughly 15 minutes between the surgeon general’s remarks and Alcindor’s complaint about his language. During that time, it appears she came up with her question while scrolling through social media — where most journalists seem to take their cues nowadays.
What better way to get a good sense of what the public is saying than by scrolling through a curated list of social media users?
More seriously, though, what else should we expect from PBS’s White House correspondent if not efforts to police speech that “some people” supposedly find offensive?
After all, this is the same reporter who took the president down a rabbit hole a few weeks ago at another COVID-19 briefing with questions about an anonymous White House aide who supposedly referred to the coronavirus as the “Kung-flu.”
