I tend to read an article from both sides of any discussion if a pure analytical view isn't available to try to get a handle on a situation, because of the politicising of every news story possible, but I will say the NY Times is one of the worst.
I can't find the article (because pay-wall), but to paraphrase a piece they ran early last the 'intellectual' regions of NY and cities were adhering to proper social distancing/not travelling far, but those silly hillbillies down in Alabama/the rust belt were still DRIVING distances in excess of 10 miles (It obviously conveniently ignored the fact in places like that, that could be the distance you need to go to get groceries).
If they can get a chance to stick the knife into the 'dumb' working class that voted in Trump, they'll jump at it. Not the way you should be comporting yourself in a time like this in my mind.
I've been reading news from countries dealing with this for quite some time now. Either directly (Belgium, Dutch, UK, Germany) or via Google Translate (France, Italy, Spain). So now the US is impacted more strongly than before I am reading up on US news more than usual. And it is
exhausting. The biggest difference (though the UK has a lite-version of this) is the endless use of adjectives and the constant drive to not just tell me what happened, but
how I should feel about it. Give me the death count by all means, but don't put a qualifier in front of it. I don't need some corp to tell me if I am shocked by it or not, I can figure that part out myself. Sure, tell me what this or that politician factually said, the whole extended quote if you please, but don't tell me whether that is brave, insightful, cowardly, narrowminded or whatever. You, the news media, give me the facts and where you got them from. I, the reader, decide what I make of that.
And it has an effect on how people think. I follow (among others) r/politics, which (a long time ago) was a left'ish community about US politics. It then became clearly left, exclusively left, extremely left and now I have no clue what to call it. I've been reading some of the COVID discussions there. It will kill a million Americans. No, ten million. Any bidders for twenty million? FIFTY MILLION! I went to /r/the_donald. Same bizarro nonsense. Reading through a number of different communities on 'both sides' I found every conceivable conspiracy, from Russia plotting to kill 50 million Americans with this using Trump as a secret agent, to the idea that the virus doesn't exist and NY has fake hospitals recordings because there are no victims. The deep state is plotting a hostile take-over! No, the GOP is about the institute a dictatorship! Haha, it will kill all the old trump-supporters! Haha, it will kill all the liberals in the big cities!
It is
mental. And while every country has its fair share of unstable individuals, the polarizing split here is just pretty unique. I am
way to the left of the DNC, but the mere suggestion that the COVID19 mortality rate is absolutely no where near 30%(!) instantly makes me a trumpeteer, a russian bot, a crisis-denier. Have some downvotes!
As for your remark about the NYT and their digs at rural America: didn't see that myself, but not discarding that it happens. However, I did read this article:
In places where social distancing was already a way of life, the relentless pandemic has begun to reshape the economy.
www.nytimes.com
It didn't strike me as negative about those communities (though to which extent it is
true is something else). And even if the text is no good to some, to me some of the photos are pretty gorgeous!