We were told originally that the Coronavirus (the first time I heard of this virus was in my 1988 biology classes) was super-deadly and watched endless videos played by the BBC of people falling over in the streets – I’m still waiting to see someone do that in England – though I’m sure it happens all the time.
Now – after three years of investigations and delving into government and pharma company statistics it is now believed by most scientists, that this was a coronavirus (which for 40+ years was always given in medical text books as an example of a common cold) engineered to be slightly more transmissive, slightly more severe, but slightly less deadly than common flu (look up the overall death rate on government websites – children are almost totally unaffected).
How did this mis-match of reporting and truth happen? When hasn’t this happened in recent media history is a better question? Naturally – news outlets always desperate for viewing figures need to please their sponsors and increase revenue supplied by said entities, seek bad events and happenings over good events happening – rather than report the plain and boring truth about a new (mutated/variant) coronavirus (all seasonal coronavirus outbreaks are mutations – ie variants, hence you catch the new variant). And so it is also natural that the media – needing more cash from sponsors (many of whom are pharma companies) would report more carefully on a pandemic, or the spread of a common cold-like variant like Covid-19 (Covid-19 is not the virus name but the set of symptoms the virus creates – loss of smell etc – unsurprisingly very similar symptoms to cold and flu according to the NHS website – though it took some time – a year or more for this to be made known on their site). It seems very natural to me that media outlets would prefer to tell us how many have died WITH Covid-19 as opposed to who has actually died OF Covid19 – as headlines need to be as dramatic as possible to retain viewers and sponsor’s $$$.
In my (old-fashioned) view, the media are largely responsible (not just in the Coronavirus case) of creating panic and fear and exacerbating problems in general around the globe – not to mention giving air-time to bad actors to retain viewers – just the very thing such actors need – since most bad-actors of which would shrivel up and disappear if the media was not in existence to give air-time to their grievances and atrocities designed to garner the world’s attention.
In fact, I have never been convinced that the media has ever been of any benefit to any of us – ever – other than to spread gossip, lies and just waste all of our creative time – in a sense I’m adding to it now! I’m almost certain we would all be much better off without them altogether – perhaps with the exception of some type of honest health news media outlets who don’t lie by omission, and reported truth rather than endless titivating ‘opinion’ pieces – opinion being the seeming direction of all ‘news’ outlets these days rather that real old-school reporting – with most media outlets today being in the pockets of big business, all of whom like to steer public opinion in directions that favour them.
Reporting 101: assume nothing – believe nobody – check everything. God said: let all men be liars. There are 10,000 reasons why all men lie – some more forgivable than others and we ALL do it to more or less degrees. Men lie because of social pressure to conform, because they have been misled, willing ignorance, to feed one’s family and retain a livelihood, to save someone’s life (yes in the war – untruths were told that saved lives), to get rich quick, pure malice etc but we must always be aware of this fact.
I love God, Christ, The Bible. art, painting, playing music, improvising music, guitar (first instrument), drumming (not very good at it:), and anything musical or art related. Quick note – my articles are usually spun off in minutes so forgive any errors – hopefully you get the essence of the article and I’ll pick up mistakes later. If you want to write of 101ChristianMagazine and inspire and edify Christians with articles on faith, general news, hobbies or anything that interests you email me at: epgb101@gmail.com:)
