I hear what you’re saying about the other companies and would like to see better/more coverage and would have preferred seeing it before the waitlist grew and grew and was then deactivated right about the time the Allegheny story came out. I suppose part of the frustration for those of us not yet eligible in 1b is that it seems the PA health department’s recommendations and phases don’t mean anything if the hospital can contract with private businesses. And again, I’m happy friends and neighbors are getting shots in arms whether their employers helped them jump the line or not, and I understand it is efficient to go through employers and I want teachers to have access to the shot, but it makes you feel like a sucker standing in line with absolutely no idea when it’ll move.
Personally I’m conflicted about the vaccination program at Allegheny that you allude to. Yes, it’s good that those friends and neighbors were able to receive vaccines. No, it’s not ideologically skewed reporting and it’s not inventing a conspiracy for a reporter at the Tribune, having obviously received a copy of the email sent to Allegheny employees, to ask questions and write a story about what is happening in our community. I’m just not following you down that rabbit hole. I, too, dislike seeing a racist like Ben Shapiro in our paper so often. But the decisions to run that are far above the head of the local news reporters. With 6000 eligible people on the waitlist in Crawford County, it certainly is newsworthy that MMC and Allegheny worked this out in secret. It is extraordinary to tell folks if someone asks you about the vaccine to contact a hospital spokesperson! Anyhow, I’m glad people are being vaccinated, but don’t drag a local reporter for reporting the news.
Oh, and for sure, I agree re: the editorial page. That’s my intended point...not that the reporters are biased, but that the editorial leadership deciding what is printed (and which stories are assigned and run) shows a clear rightward lean.
The issue I see, however, is that almost every single tool and die shop also contracted with MMC, and had their vaccinations even before the College. That story was never written, and that context was not included in the article. Ignoring that detail certainly seems curious, and certainly presents precisely the impression of hush-hush clandestine scheming that you reference. I know, back in my newspaper days, my editor would have flipped his lid if I’d written an article like that. It wouldn’t have made it out the door until I tracked down the whole vaccine plan for every employer in the area. And, really, that’s the story that should have been written here. Who, and why, and how it relates to the 1A-1B rollouts. Definitely, comparing that to the long waitlist is newsworthy. An article implying conspiracy with a single employer doing the same thing as many other employers is questionable, to say the least.
I hear what you’re saying about the other companies and would like to see better/more coverage and would have preferred seeing it before the waitlist grew and grew and was then deactivated right about the time the Allegheny story came out. I suppose part of the frustration for those of us not yet eligible in 1b is that it seems the PA health department’s recommendations and phases don’t mean anything if the hospital can contract with private businesses. And again, I’m happy friends and neighbors are getting shots in arms whether their employers helped them jump the line or not, and I understand it is efficient to go through employers and I want teachers to have access to the shot, but it makes you feel like a sucker standing in line with absolutely no idea when it’ll move.
I agree with all of that 💯
Personally I’m conflicted about the vaccination program at Allegheny that you allude to. Yes, it’s good that those friends and neighbors were able to receive vaccines. No, it’s not ideologically skewed reporting and it’s not inventing a conspiracy for a reporter at the Tribune, having obviously received a copy of the email sent to Allegheny employees, to ask questions and write a story about what is happening in our community. I’m just not following you down that rabbit hole. I, too, dislike seeing a racist like Ben Shapiro in our paper so often. But the decisions to run that are far above the head of the local news reporters. With 6000 eligible people on the waitlist in Crawford County, it certainly is newsworthy that MMC and Allegheny worked this out in secret. It is extraordinary to tell folks if someone asks you about the vaccine to contact a hospital spokesperson! Anyhow, I’m glad people are being vaccinated, but don’t drag a local reporter for reporting the news.
Oh, and for sure, I agree re: the editorial page. That’s my intended point...not that the reporters are biased, but that the editorial leadership deciding what is printed (and which stories are assigned and run) shows a clear rightward lean.
The issue I see, however, is that almost every single tool and die shop also contracted with MMC, and had their vaccinations even before the College. That story was never written, and that context was not included in the article. Ignoring that detail certainly seems curious, and certainly presents precisely the impression of hush-hush clandestine scheming that you reference. I know, back in my newspaper days, my editor would have flipped his lid if I’d written an article like that. It wouldn’t have made it out the door until I tracked down the whole vaccine plan for every employer in the area. And, really, that’s the story that should have been written here. Who, and why, and how it relates to the 1A-1B rollouts. Definitely, comparing that to the long waitlist is newsworthy. An article implying conspiracy with a single employer doing the same thing as many other employers is questionable, to say the least.