Don't come at Jeremy McBain with whines about locked stores, drydocked boats, personal liberties and the governor's extended stay-put order.
The northern Michigan newspaper executive editor doesn't love staying home either, and he takes a salary hit from being furloughed by Gannett one week this month, next month and in June. "I very much want this quarantine to be over and want the economy to open back up," the newsroom leader writes in a Petoskey News-Review column.
But he knows a health emergency demands tough tactics, and is intolerant of "people online acting like a child who had his toy taken away."
This disease has not brought out the best in some of us.
Since the start of the spread of this disease I have dreaded going onto our Facebook page to moderate comments. Too often the comments were filled with misinformation, people saying the media was being too dramatic, saying the flu is deadlier (spoiler: it isn't), it’s a hoax, etc.
Then when the death toll started going up, there were comments insisting the numbers were made up or people should not follow the stay-at-home orders.
Once the stay-at-home was extended because the state had not reached the peak of the disease infection rates, the comments on social media were filled with people screaming about the economy, saying the medical professionals quoted in the stories were wrong, insulting the governor and other silliness. (I am seeing comments about planting gardens and going on boat rides — do you people angry about this realize it is April in Michigan and we just had a snowstorm?) ...
The screaming and crying about the quarantine and calls for recalls and protests ... [are] embarrassing and childish.
McBain, a 44-year-old who lives in Charlevoix, is top editor of a Gannett group that also includes the Gaylord Herald Times, Charlevoix Courier, Cheboygan Tribune and Sault News.
Jeremy McBain: "I am concerned too."
He gets that fear is behind actions such as "comparing the governor to Hitler, planning protests and screaming for recalls."
Complainers should consider a generational perspective, the newsman suggests:
Your great-grandparents went through far worse supply shortages and economic hardships during the Great Depression and World War II. By all accounts, they faced the problems head-on and did what was necessary to pull them and the country through it.
You are being asked to chill out for three more weeks at home so you don’t run the risk of getting sick and dying or making someone else sick.
