The NYT was definitely on the "news that was better than the facts" train for quite awhile in the early days of the pandemic. I would argue the media as a whole

The NYT was definitely on the "news that was better than the facts" train for quite awhile in the early days of the pandemic. I would argue the media as a whole is still largely downplaying how bad things are, likely as a matter of serving the imperatives of their corporate owners, but this isn't an idea which finds any purchase with conservatives (who want not to be inconvenienced by COVID in any way) or liberals (who are allergic to most criticism of the news media or anything which can be painted with the "conspiratorial" brush).