like the New York Times has a tendency to push the "plague" position (it is almost impossible to deny the majority hype). But the facts indicate this is a very trivial virus.

www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/world/asia/co...na-grief-deaths.html

I'm intrigued by how each paper is covering it. It's not a typical reaction by the tabloids.

The S*n, for example, usually goes for the upbeat, sometimes sceptical, tone, but I'm told it's really gone for doom and gloom coverage this time.

The Express has become so used to trying to scare readers to death about everything from arctic winters (for some weird reason, snow in a bit of northern Scotland is always reported by the press as a UK-wide horror story) to some obscure article in the Lancet, it doesn't have a clue how to report this, so it's simply mixing scare stories with cosy feelgood stuff.

The Mail, predictably, is aiming for fairly balanced reporting, as it's the commercially soundest strategy at the moment. You can see it's waiting to see whom to take aim against, but until then it's staying very much in its usual middle ground. I hate the Mail but I can't help but respect its ruthless logic - it usually knows what middle England wants, for better or worse.

The Guardian is so predictably partisan that it can't be patient and is just firing ammunition at anyone it fancies on a daily basis. I find it unreadable. You know what it's going to say, so what's the point?

The Times at the moment just reads like a collection of civil service briefings. I don't get the sense that anyone there knows what and how they should be reporting.

I think JK has a point. There's a striking ack of independent thought and reporting at present. It's as if the Government is editing most of what goes out.