Let Journalists Do Their Work

China's decision to expel American journalists is "uniquely damaging and reckless as the world continues the struggle to control this disease, a struggle that will require the free flow of reliable news and information," wrote the publishers of the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New York Tiimes in their open letter to the Chinese government.

They protested the "growing crackdown on independent media" that "threatens to deprive the world of critical information at a perilous moment."

WSJ's William Lewis, WaPo's Fred Ryan and NYT's A.G. Sulzberger wrote: "Journalism bolsters strong, confident societies by providing to leaders and citizens important information and awareness to inform their lives and decisions — even, perhaps especially, when it is challenging to governments."

We hope the self-proclaimed "wartime president" will declare a ceasefire on his war against the media, which he calls the "enemy of the people."

Any federal policy to jumpstart the economy prior to the containment of COVID-19 would result in many unnecessary deaths, according to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

“There really is no middle ground, and it’s very tough to say to people, ‘Hey, keep going to restaurants, go buy new houses, ignore that pile of bodies over in the corner. We want you to keep spending because there’s maybe a politician who thinks GDP growth is all that counts,’” Gates said March 24 during a TED interview. “It’s very irresponsible for somebody to suggest that we can have the best of both worlds.”

Admitting that COVID-19 has delivered a big blow to the economy, he said: “But bringing the economy back ... that’s more of a reversible thing than bringing people back to life. So we’re going to take the pain in the economic dimension — huge pain — in order to minimize the pain in the diseases-and-death dimension.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations has spent $100M to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bank of America received a PR black eye over after a staff backlash at its One Bryant Park head office over its decision to ban them from executing trades at home without management approval.

That policy ran counter to competitors like Goldman Sachs and JPMorganChase, which allowed staffers to execute trades from home to allay fears over the COVID-19 pandemic.

BofA reversed course on March 24, allowing its global markets staff to work at home.

"Fake news" sites love Google, according to the Global Disinformaton Index, which gauges the trustworthiness of 70K websites. It found that European fake sites earned about $75M a year from ads placed by Google.

The Financial Times reported that a Spanish disinformation site ran an ad placed by Google on the Amnesty International site that claimed the US blamed Russia for COVID-19.

A Google spokesperson blamed the GDI report, saying its definition of disinformation is unclear.