What The Media Should Shut Up About

Russiagate. I'm going to be generous and pretend that there is actually some truth to that, and that it isn't a silly distraction the Democrats are using to blame anyone and anything for their election losses other than themselves. How is the focus on Russiagate going to bring people health care, give them good jobs, move towards a non fossil fuel economy, and reduce military tensions and conflicts all over the world?

The 2020 Presidential race. In recent months, we have heard several names floated. Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders. Andrew Yang. Richard Ojeda. Tulsi Gabbard. Kirsten Gillibrand. Kamala Harris. Corey Booker. Beto O'Rourke. Elizabeth Warren. Heck, I even read in the newspaper that my *dog* was interested in running, and I don't even have a dog. This was going on even before the current Congress was sworn in. The next election is just a little over 2 years away, let's deal with it then, and focus on more pressing things.

I know this might sound a bit cruel given the times, but do we really need to hear stories in the news about every person who gets sick with coronavirus, every person who was debilitated from it, and every person who dies? First of all, why don't we go all the way and fill the news with stories about every person who recovers without any long-term reprecussions?

Of course these debilitating and fatal infections are tragic. Peole had plans, and all of a sudden they were cut down by tragedy. The implication, the way the news media is talking about these, is that this sort of thing never happened before coronavirus. How about the many people whose lives were suddenly cut short or were suddenly disabled because of a medical condition they were not aware that they had? Notice the number of pedestians that are run down by cars every year in this country, and yet the media rarely shows these people or their families begging for dirvers to be careful in order to not ruin someone's life? Of course these people want drivers to be more careful, but they are almost never given a public platform to say as much. We know that cornoavirus can cause major sickness, often times wtih debilitating or fatal consequences. What is the actual news value of these stories?

Speaking of coronavirus, am I the only one here tired of seeing commercials from retail and food service companies thanking people for the work they do in the pandemic? Notice that these are the same retail and food service companies that under pay their staff and lobby against minimum wage increases. Are they going to put their dollars into action and pay their staff enough to live off of?

I'm going to say what so many must be thinking but are too afraid to say right now:

I'm sick of hearing about coronavirus, and how everything that happens these days is because of coronavirus. It's so bad that if I trip on the stairs walking up to the door, I expect to see a news article saying that it's because of coronavirus.

So with attention on the deaths from coronavirus, I thought I would talk about the death of 24-year-old Joanne Enns in Winkler, Manitoba. She's a young woman who was reported to have died of the flu in the winter time, but now the family is wondering if it is covid. There was a news article about her death when it happened, but generally these kinds of sudden tragedies have been happening all the time, known only to the friends and family of the deceased, and never making the news page. Now that people are scared of coronavirus, of course the media is going to highlight those tragedies to generate more subscriptions, clicks, and ratings. (It's the flip side of what Fox News does, which is to find people in the "high risk" catetory who survived covid in an effort to downplay the severity.) Are the coronavirus deaths tragic? Of course! But all these other deaths, many of them sudden that don't make the news, are just as tragic for the family and friends left behind. We don't even know if this was covid. As the medical expert quoted says:

Quote:

"I wouldn't wish that situation on anybody," he said. "But this is something that happens every single season with influenza."

Misfit wrote:

From the beginning of time people have committed suicide. Drug overdosing is an ongoing problem whether it is accidental or suicidal. But right now we are living at a time where there is a virus spreading across the globe that is killing people but especially targeting immune compromised and breathing compromised people. It takes community cooperation and participation to work to try to stop the spread of this virus. So there is something that we all can do to work together to help other people and try to save as many lives as possible.

This to me is the flip side of the logic that is used on Fox News to downplay the pandemic. "It's just old people and those with compromised immune systems, and this happens every year during flu season," they say. "Why should the rest of us who aren't at risk have to restrict our liberty for such a small portion of the population?" I find this especially cruel since there is a case to be made that lockdown and quarantine measures have made these problems worse.

Misfit wrote:

We are living in a pandemic right now. It is normal for the media to be focusing on issues related to covid.

Sometimes the media creates things and either plays them up or plays them down. This is actually a great time for the media. People are scared of the pandemic, so the media writes stories about it. More people are scared, the media sees that it's a ratings generator, and the cycle continues. Best of all from the media standpoint, they don't have to do any work. Just keep on pumping out the coronavirus stories and ignore anything else going on that would cost actual time and resources to investigate while possibly angering their corporate advertisers.

Let's also take a look at why the media in this country is focusing on covid so much. It's basically because it has arrived here. Suppose you had an outbreak of a disease that was infecting far more people, with a much higher fatality rate (let's say for the sake of argument that 35% of the people who catch this disease die from it) but that this outbreak was confined to countries in south Asia and Africa. Do you think the media would pay as much attention as covid is now receiving?

Misfit wrote:

I don't recall you having a prior theme of drug overdosing being a pressing and consistent issue for you before this pandemic struck. That doesn't mean that you have never cared about drug overdosing before, and you likely even posted about it before too.

It has made the news in Winnipeg and BC, so there is cause to pay more attention. Plus, moving about in Winnipeg, I can see for myself that the city has changed for the worse because the social distancing restrictions are causing problems with service delivery for vulnerable populations. I can assure you that if social distancing keeps drop-in centres closed over the winter, you will see bodies in the street from people freezing to death because they have nowhere to go during the day.

Misfit wrote:

I think that you are tired of covid and on the restrictions that covid has placed on you personally

Bingo. I'm entitled to feel however I want about the covid restrictions, or anything else for that matter. And many more people are also tired of these restrictions, however they don't speak up for fear of being shouted down as being grandma-killers.

Misfit wrote:

I am also sure that many politicians feel the exact same way as you do but they cannot ethically proclaim that our senior citizens and immune compromised and breathing compromised friends and family members are worthless statistical collateral because they want to get re-elected.

This has been a godsend for politicians because now people are turning to their governments more, but these politicians are the reason why we are in this mess. They ignored warnings from the WHO in the early stages when this thing could have been stopped in its tracks, they didn't do a proper quarantine for returning travellers when the pandemic was declared and everyone was ordered to go home. They didn't protect our elder care homes even though the one thing you can say with confidence about any respiratory infection is that older people are at a higher risk and that has been a huge driver of the pandemic. They didn't stand up for meat packing plant workers who were screaming that their employers weren't taking proper protective steps, and they aren't taking steps to protect temporary foreign workers who live in apalling conditions when they arrive. They're also ending social distancing restrictiosn on planes, but churches are still closed in many parts of the country and will be for some time. Back to my point about the media above, they are for the most part ignoring these bigger systemic problems that are spreading the infection, while working hard to find ways to scare individuals that every move they make will make them sick.

Misfit wrote:

There are many in the United States who seem to be more in line with your views on covid. I don't consider you to be on the same bandwidth as some of the right-wing American civil liberty rights activists, but I don't consider your views to be any compliment to you either.

I don't know what this means. I like to make up my own mind about what I think is happening. I don't like being brow-beaten or intimidated into trying to change my opinion. And on any issue that the media says, "OH MY GOD THERE IS THIS CRISIS AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE," I assume ulterior motivations that have more to do with controlling the population than any rational discussion. It's essentially the same way I react to fear-mongering stories in the local media about how bad crime is here, fear-mongering about why it is necessary to spray dangerous chemicals in Winnipeg to stop West Nile virus, and the same way I would respond if there was a terrorist attack and these intimidation tactics were being used to try and get us to accept authoritarianism or snitch on our neighbours.

Can't the media, for once, objectively say, "this is what the problem is, these are our options to respond, here are the pros and cons of each" without the flashlight under the chin?

So shortly after the CFL was cancelled, there was an opinion piece on the CBC Manitoba webpage suggesting that we might not see CFL football until 2022. (I won't link to that article because I do not want to generate traffic and encourage that kind of reporting.) Why do we need to enter such speculation when it's not even Labour Day? Whatever happened to crossing that bridge when we get there? Let's just accept that the 2020 season is gone and cross our fingers for next year. We have plenty of time to worry about cancelling next year's season or not having fans in the stands if it comes to that.

With school opening up, I really dread these news reports we are going to see every time a student tests positive for covid 19. The students are already cohorted into groups, and the schools have already put in place protocols to let people know what's happened. Most of these cases will be of immediate concern only to the students affected and those within their cohort, and will not pose a danger to the wider public. I think the schools can communicate directly with those affected, and should only send out public bulletins when the safety of the wider community is at stake. There is only so much the media can cover, let's move on to more serious and important things and not worry about situations that will resolve internally on their own.