MEDIA COVERAGE OF PANDEMIC ‘IS RETRIBUTION FOR BREXIT’: Tim Black (Spiked! 4/8) argued that the media establishment, including the BBC, had generated ‘a barrage of fearmongering’ about the dangers of Covid-19 and seemed to be almost revelling in the pandemic, as if high death tolls, raising infection rates and R numbers were political points to be scored against the ‘Brexity Tory government’. He said:
“That is partially why the dominant media narrative has been so unremittingly doom-laden. It is a form of vengeance for members of an embittered media class. Retribution for the sins of Brexit. Punishment for electing the dastardly Tories. And so, Covid-related death tolls have become a daily incantation. Graphs, always curving ominously, have been tweeted hourly. And always with a sort of grim sense of vindication. No context is offered. No attempt to situate Covid in among the many other causes of death, globally and nationally, is made. There is never any admission that, say, tuberculosis, a disease for which there is treatment and a vaccine, will kill more people around the world this year than Covid. Never any willingness to admit that this nasty virus is just that — a nasty virus, and not the end of the world.”.