tldr; If you're sick with Corona virus, the blame lies entirely with Trump, not China for hiding it early on, not the WHO for recommending countries continue as normal and tried to downplay it, Trump, and we should call it the Trump virus (the new "thanks Obama" I guess).
Two days later in reaction to this, Trump called this kind of talk in the media and on Twitter by DNC pundits (who take their talking points from NYT) a hoax. Everyone at the rally he was talking to had seen that article, cause it was shared and mocked, talked about on Fox News, everyone there had the same context, its your lack of awareness that causes the context shift, and when the media reported on it they also conveniently left out that context, because they're lazy at best, trying to steer the narrative at worse. People see the misrepresentation and they believe the media even less. They realize the bias is both ways, the people who claim to be factual ignore facts that aren't convenient.
It is only word salad to you because you walked in half way into the conversation, and are happy to assume the worst (that he said the virus itself was a hoax) without doing some background on it.
Those are reasonable points, and I acknowledge based on the details you mentioned that the incident of Trump referring to a "hoax" may not fit the standard pattern Trump uses. In another comment in this thread I describe the pattern as he used it about immigrants, about Charlottesville, etc. I'm curious if you think those cases are also situations where Trump deserves to have his character defended.
But, to your point, I strongly agree that the NYT has done a horrible job at journalism in the Trump era. Nearly every day there are headlines that focus on Trump's persona rather than the substance (or lack thereof) of his policies, and the paper seems to prefer to publish stories that appeal to its in-group rather than stories that report what happened and contextualize it over time. Often, nearly every single story on the front page starts with the word Trump, with a few left of center stories just to create the impression that the paper is not a right wing voice itself.
For instance, NYT readers likely do not know that Obama stared the tent camps for children of illegal immigrants who committed certain kinds of crimes, and that the audio of children crying was captured while Obama was in office.
To be clear, I have zero respect for Trump, and zero respect for the NYT. The article you linked is a shameful and unnecessary (and low quality) bit of drivel, meant only to secure more subscription fees from partisans. It doesn't add anything of value to the dialog.
I do think the word salad is a deliberate tactic used by Trump to achieve both a textual and subtextual outcome from his speech. He knows what will turn into a sound bite and tailors them to be the kinds of sound bites that will resonate both for him and against him. If you are skeptical of this point I will be happy to dig into it in more detail as it worked in his favor during the 2016 campaign.
> Nearly every day there are headlines that focus on Trump's persona rather than the substance (or lack thereof) of his policies, and the paper seems to prefer to publish stories that appeal to its in-group rather than stories that report what happened and contextualize it over time.
This!
I just assume Trump can't talk, but apparently his supporters think he's talking off the cuff so he's just being authentic even if they wish he'd not do it so much or be so crass, which I guess to them is him being genuine or honest. Trump will openly admit the only reason we sell arms to Saudi Arabia is because of oil, where as every other President made excuses, that's weirdly more transparent. His misspellings etc on Twitter are people seeing someone tweet stream of conscious, not even taking the time to spell check or reword it, which is terrible for public office but things have gotten so bad with politics they see him as telling you exactly what he thinks even if its terrible.
I don't give him that much credit as far as tactics, I know he likes to troll the media, the media reacts predictably, and some of his supporters love to see the predictable reaction. The media has become addicted to it, and the ratings, the DNC listen and pander to fringe voices on Twitter mistaking them for average people. They've started focusing so hard on Trump they've gotten nothing done, their talking points are losing moderates. People remember Bush being called Hitler, now everyone is numb to it. People just expect news organizations who live in their own Twitter bubble and major blue cities who pretend to be impartial to shit all over the GOP and never give credit, and over look the same behavior when committed by their own side. People with center right positions on the political compass positions even Bernie Sanders supported, are called alt-right, people have just turned off to it. They routinely misrepresent their position, or setup a strawman in the headline and clarify in the bottom paragraph if at all. Nothing was learned from the last election. They pushed a man to the front of the line who wasn't polling well is just as bad with words but for different reasons, and cusses out union workers on the factory floor when they accurately describe his position he explained in a news interview.
In NYT, they featured this "opinion" piece:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/coronavirus-trump...
tldr; If you're sick with Corona virus, the blame lies entirely with Trump, not China for hiding it early on, not the WHO for recommending countries continue as normal and tried to downplay it, Trump, and we should call it the Trump virus (the new "thanks Obama" I guess).
Two days later in reaction to this, Trump called this kind of talk in the media and on Twitter by DNC pundits (who take their talking points from NYT) a hoax. Everyone at the rally he was talking to had seen that article, cause it was shared and mocked, talked about on Fox News, everyone there had the same context, its your lack of awareness that causes the context shift, and when the media reported on it they also conveniently left out that context, because they're lazy at best, trying to steer the narrative at worse. People see the misrepresentation and they believe the media even less. They realize the bias is both ways, the people who claim to be factual ignore facts that aren't convenient.
It is only word salad to you because you walked in half way into the conversation, and are happy to assume the worst (that he said the virus itself was a hoax) without doing some background on it.
Criticize, but do so with full understanding.