If the Media Keeps Talking About ‘Florida Morons,’ Will it Surprise Anyone if Floridians Start Talking About The ‘New York Virus?’

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It is difficult to imagine a media landscape where journalists felt comfortable routinely deriding “New York morons” for suffering disproportionately from the coronavirus virus. So why have similar references become the norm for some of those critical of Florida’s approach to the pandemic?

The embrace of ad hominem language to describe Florida’s approach to the coronavirus has become especially popular over the last couple of months, particularly after The New York Daily News latched on to the trend with an April 19 tweet describing the state’s decision to reopen some of its beaches, using the hashtag “Florida morons.” The Washington Post similarly noted the trend a day earlier.

The development is ironic considering Florida has experienced a relatively mild number of infections throughout the pandemic. As of May 15, New York City alone had experienced 190,357 confirmed cases of the virus — more than four times the 43,210 cases reported in the entire state of Florida. And while the state of New York accounts for about 24 percent of coronavirus cases in the United States, Florida accounts for a paltry 3 percent. (The contrast is even starker when you consider Florida accounts for 6 percent of the U.S. population.)

Politico’s Marc Caputo and Renuka Rayasam noted the mismatch between the rhetoric and the numbers in the Friday edition of Politico’s Florida Playbook, “Florida just doesn’t look nearly as bad as the national news media and sky-is-falling critics have been predicting for about two months now.”

They also suggested Northeastern media elites played a role in cultivating the negativity. “The national news media is mostly based in New York and loves to love its Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, about as much as it loves to hate on Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. … Cuomo also has something else DeSantis doesn’t: a press that defers to him, one that preferred to cover “Florida Morons” at the beach (where it’s relatively hard to get infected) over New Yorkers riding cramped subway cars (where it’s easy to get infected).”

The issue began, in part, as a result of DeSantis’ decision not to impose a stay-at-home order until April 3. Even though he declared a public health emergency on March 1 and ordered nightlife establishments to close on March 17 — the same day New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio took the same action in his city — The New York Times insisted in April 11 story it had not been enough, arguing, “people got sick — and some died — after attending crowded parties and theme parks in Florida.” It wasn’t until the seventh paragraph the authors informed readers the data wasn’t all clear, noting the number of those “who returned from leisure trips to Florida with the coronavirus may never be known.”

Cuomo also made geography an issue in the early days of the virus, telling the country his state was not unique. “New York is the canary in the coal mine,” he said. “New York is going first. We have the highest and the fastest rate of infection. What happens to New York is going to wind up happening to California, and Washington state, and Illinois. It’s just a matter of time. We’re just getting there first.”

In more recent days, Cuomo has focused more on talking about the origins of the virus, making the case that it could be referred to as the “European virus” because, in his view, it came to New York predominantly from Europe. At least one resident of the region, New York Post columnist Karol Markowitz seemed to understand the implications of that reasoning, writing on Twitter, “Does he realize the rest of the country will start calling it the New York virus if we’re just going by where it most recently came from?”

To date, predictions by Cuomo and others that the coronavirus would affect Florida as badly as New York have not played out. Not all of the reasons are clear, though a May 10 Tampa Bay Times study suggested some of it could be a result of personal initiative. Using data from Google and two cell phone companies, the paper found Floridians took it upon themselves to stay home without an order from the governor: “By April 3, when DeSantis’ shutdown order took effect, nearly half of the state’s counties had seen 50 percent drops in median movement for at least two weeks.”

Florida began to reopen on May 4, and DeSantis said this week the state will begin the “full” first phase of reopening on May 18. For now, New York’s lockdown is set to last until at least June 13. It isn’t clear when residents in either state will feel comfortable venturing outside their homes.

Considering how little is known about the virus and the manner in which it spreads, circumstances could always change in the days ahead. In the meantime, it might serve Americans well — particularly those in media — to remember the Golden Rule: Unless New Yorkers want Floridians to start referring to it as the “New York Virus,” they may want to stop talking about “Florida morons.”

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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