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This piece marks the start of a new biweekly blog series from RDP. Every two weeks, we’ll call out ongoing trends in media coverage of the Justice Department’s focus and priorities, giving context from our past DOJ oversight work as needed, with an eye to the impact of DOJ capacity and resources, as well as alignment with the Biden administration’s professed goals.

Last week a shocking story from NPR largely slipped under the radar. The headline: “Why the EPA puts a higher value on rich lives lost to climate change.” Climate Correspondent Rebecca Hersher shared the “twisted tale of math, ethics and climate change” that is the Environmental Protection Agency’s effort to decide what’s been called the most important number you’ve never heard of: the social cost of greenhouse gases. 

There’s a lot to gripe about when discussing the Beltway media class in the United States. Progressives at groups like FAIR and Media Matters have spent years rightfully criticizing the press for access journalism, the ever-present need to equate perspectives from both major parties, and corporate-sponsored PR published under the facade of a news article. But a recent study of biases present in the BBC’s coverage of UK politics may help us understand yet another major failing of our media. Journalists lack an understanding of basic economic principles, leading them to unwittingly flawed reporting.

Since the early days of the pandemic, the federal government has been pre-purchasing Covid vaccines at an average cost of around $20 per dose (around $29 per dose for the bivalent boosters) to ensure public access to vaccination at no cost. However, with Congress no longer willing to fund Covid treatment, the Biden administration has indicated that it intends to end the Covid public health emergency in May, and more or less hand over control of Covid prevention to the healthcare industry.