Wyot wrote:
Interesting HEDDA.
What part do you think the media played in how Governments have responded to Covid?
I ask not to try and get into an argument or provoke you; but because I am genuinely interested in your take on this?
little provokes me
..the media have largely acted responsibly to date as this has been such a world-wide deadly pandemic that involves them as well.
Journalists, media barons and all in between are as susceptible to Covid as everyone else.
Although of course the Murdochs play games whilst..Fox News boss Lachlan & family sit it out in his vast Sydney mansion with live in staff and a tutor while running Fox from his high tech "bunker" yet allowing some Fox pundits to promote AQnon anti-vax stuff even though Fox requires all staff to be double-vaxed.
# then again Murdoch has claimed..to win a court case..that Fox isn't really News. Propaganda?
Even the UK's right wing media (which is most of it) have been in lock step.
But we are now seeing the real power of Social Media where alternative "facts" take hold and as one pundit accurately pointed out..a million people find "truths" & "facts" on social media that apparently 10,000s of the world's scientists and medical researchers missed.
I suspect the next stage of the media is to find someone to blame for Covid..probably doctors, (Fauci ?), Biden, nurses . MPs, PMs..for that is their wont.
The media sets them up and knocks them down. They are in a
win win position. They can destroy a person and when that person is found innocent wring it's hands at the unfairness of it all.
It can create celebrities out of an ordinary person & then strike at that person when they are vulnerable.
But they now compete with "Social Media" that can make any claim without a scintilla of proof.
Just a small but significant example..the 1000s who turned up recently in
Dealy Plaza expecting
JFK & JFK Jr to emerge from hiding (and bizarrely as dead Democrats endorse Donald Trump) with a significant disappointed number then moving onto a
Rolling Stones concert now convinced
Keith Richards is in fact..JFK !.
Meanwhile millions of Americans believe an election was stolen from them and
Joe Biden (unlike
Barack Obama who was merely a
"socialist") is a fully fledged
Communist despite
Capitalist Wall Street relishing the $Billions coming their way via road building, bridge mending, social housing repairs & the
Walton family (America's richest and owners of the ginormous WalMart) popping champagne at the thought of those *Billions that will be spent with them via increased child benefits & welfare cheques. (all of which is Business As Usual in the USA with many of these "policies" introduced by previous Republican administrations.
Established media and now
Social Media have convinced the poorest Americans..the Southern States which for 100 years were solid Democrat bases..that a rich, many times bankrupt
Donald Trump who gets his merchandise manufactured in China and uses Chinese steel in his buildings, built by undocumented labour (unions won't touch him) has their best interests in mind.
The established media also profits from this stuff but is really in a
holding pattern,
unsure how to handle it.
I suspect the next movement on Social Media will be to
turn their guns on the established media. They've avoided blame to date but why are they exempt?.
They too soon will incur the wrath of the
QAnon cult (who else can it blame?)and one sentence from Rupert Murdoch (never underestimate his influence) in a speech a few days ago indicates this..telling Donald Trump to "move on" and stop dwelling on the past.
Below:
JFKeef ..the resemblance is uncanny !