Since February 13, the major broadcast news networks have largely ignored President Donald Trump’s 2018 firings of the “entire pandemic response chain of command” put into place by former President Barack Obama in response to the 2014 Ebola crisis. Aside from a handful of clips that show Democratic presidential candidates criticizing Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, this critical context has gone completely unmentioned by broadcast newscasters.

Media Matters reviewed morning shows, evening news shows, and the Sunday morning political talk shows on ABC, CBS, and NBC for mentions of the coronavirus. In segments about the coronavirus that also mentioned Trump’s response to the epidemic, we reviewed for mentions of the 2018 firings and found only three segments, on: the February 28 edition of CBS’ Evening News, the February 29 edition of CBS’ This Morning, and the March 1 edition of ABC’s This Week. NBC did not mention the firings at all.

Both CBS mentions were from Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s criticism of Trump’s coronavirus response in an interview with the network’s 60 Minutes. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told This Week host George Stephanopoulos that Trump “eliminated the office we set up -- we set up in the president’s office to deal with pandemic diseases.”

Previously, Media Matters reviewed the broadcast morning shows and evening news for mentions of the firings and found none from February 13 through 9 a.m. on February 27.

Update March 12, 2020: Since the publication of this study, broadcast news has still not mentioned Trump’s firing of the pandemic response chain of command in 2018. Out of 138 segments that at least mentioned any aspect of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic since February 13, 2020, we found no additional mentions of the firings beyond the three identified in this study. And in all three instances, it was a Democratic candidate who brought up the pandemic response team, not a newsperson.

Much of the recent criticism of the administration’s response has centered on the lack of accessibility to testing and the low number of tests conducted. Rear Adm. Tim Ziemer, who has been described as “one of the most quietly effective leaders in public health,” was part of the leadership team abolished by Trump. As Judd Legum pointed out in the Popular Information newsletter, the pandemic response groups “had people with the relevant background and expertise” that would have been beneficial when trying to troubleshoot and fix the country's testing problems.

Between February 13 and March 2, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times mentioned the missing pandemic response teams in just 10 print articles -- some of which didn’t even point out that Trump had fired them -- while 64 additional articles that mentioned Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak did not address them. USA Today and The Wall Street Journal failed to mention the firings even once, even though they mentioned Trump’s response to the outbreak in 12 articles over the time period.

Update March 13, 2020: In the eight days since the publication of this study, five major newspapers still barely mentioned Trump’s firing of the pandemic response teams in their print news stories. Between March 3-11, The New York Times mentioned the firings in just three of 55 stories mentioning the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, while The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times didn’t mention the firings once in that time period. USA Today and The Wall Street Journal still have not mentioned the firings in their print news articles a single time over the course of this study.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ This Morning, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press for segments that included the term “coronavirus” between February 13 and March 2, 2020. We then reviewed those transcripts for whether they also mentioned Trump’s response to the disease, his firing of the pandemic leadership team, or both.

We looked for segments where coronavirus was the stated topic of discussion or where two or more speakers discussed coronavirus with one another. We included only segments that also at least mentioned Trump’s response to the disease. We did not include teasers of upcoming segments or passing mentions of the coronavirus during segments about other topics.

We also searched news articles in the Nexis and Factiva databases from the print editions of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times that included both of the terms “coronavirus” and “Trump” from February 13 through March 2, 2020. We included any articles about coronavirus that also mentioned any aspect of the Trump administration’s response. We excluded editorials, op-eds, columns, and letters to the editor.

Update March 13, 2020: For our updates to this study, we searched broadcast news and newspapers for the term “coronavirus” within close proximity to any of the terms “Trump,” “Pence,” “Fauci,” “Adams,” “Azar,” “Birx,” “Redfield,” “Cuccinelli,” “Verma,” “administration,” “task force,” “advisory panel,” or “response” in order to find segments or articles at least mentioning any aspect of the Trump administration's response to coronavirus. (Mike Pence, Anthony Fauci, Jerome Adams, Alex Azar, Deborah Birx, Robert Redfield, Ken Cuccinelli, and Seema Verma are all members of the White House's coronavirus task force.) We then reviewed those transcripts and articles for any mentions of the 2018 firings of the pandemic response chain of command.