The right-wing media’s rallying cry: anti-lockdown edition – Columbia Journalism Review

ON MONDAY, Joshua A. Bickel, on assignment for the Columbus Dispatch, took a photo that went viral. Bickel was in the Ohio statehouse, where he’d been sent, in the absence of a furloughed colleague, to film a briefing by Mike DeWine, the governor. His photo captured a group of protesters, mid-cry, as they clamored just outside a window. Two of the protesters had “TRUMP” hats on; another was wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. They were not respecting social-distancing guidelines. In recent days, the image has circulated online as the visual encapsulation of an angry new cause: right-wing opposition to stay-at-home orders. Liberals shared the photo mockingly, likening the protesters to zombies from the movie Shaun of the Dead. That made Bickel feel uncomfortable. “These people aren’t zombies,” he told Slate. “They’re people, and we don’t know what they’re dealing with.”