TIME TO END THE NEGATIVITY OVER COVID-19

Media coverage of the COVID-19 epidemic seems to have turned from reporting to obsession. 

The various news programmes happily ignore all other events and cover only COVID-19 connected stories, or so it seems to me. They seek out every opportunity for criticizing the government, promoting scare stories and dramatizing numbers. Every aspect of the government's approach, every action, word and even nuance, is closely analysed for any possibility of turning it into yet another 'issue', while the opinions of those who claim to be disadvantaged, forgotten or put upon are broadcast as if undoubted fact. 

The same stories are repeated ad nauseam. The newly elected leader of the Labour Party, while professing to support the government in this time of crisis, demands they act in ways which are wholly contrary to common sense and the maintenance of good order. He is doing nothing but laying the groundwork for what he hopes will be future electoral success by demanding things which he knows should not, and will not, be forthcoming. Nonetheless, he is feted by the media and his demands receive little in the way of serious analysis or opposition from its members.

The result is a government doing its level best to deal with a major crisis while the media conspires with its political opponents to stir up trouble. There is no positivity from either, only a continuous stream of negativity. 

In this world of lockdowns, I wonder if locking down the non-essential news media might not now be a necessary move. There is little real news being reported and what there is, is often highly subjective and misleading. While the government's message is clear - we must all buckle up and sit this crisis out - the media wants to know when it will all end, something that no one yet knows or even has an objective view about. The media behaves as if COVID-19 is the government's fault, rather than it being a virus that is no one's fault, it simply 'IS'. By its approach, the media is almost encouraging people to be impatient and, ultimately, to turn against the government and its policies, something which would be an unmitigated disaster.

Someone needs to get a grip on the media, especially the BBC which is meant to be a wholly impartial national broadcaster but is, in fact, a bed of left wing political dogma that will use any opportunity to try to remove a right wing government as soon as possible. We can expect more highly damaging negativity, by the bucket load, from Kuenssberg and her colleagues unless the government gets a grip on this Fifth Column in its midst.