Media derangement syndrome
A new epidemic...
I’m fascinated by how certain right-wing journalists survive in the modern world, full as it is of medicine, science, and reason.
These journalists are neoliberals – they preach the free market gospel. You can’t get them to shut up about the Industrial Revolution and how deregulated enterprise supposedly birthed Britain as an economic superpower.
And yet they’re stuck in the Middle Ages – terrified of the advances in science and engineering that also spawned from their favourite period of history.
We’re thus subjected to headlines such as the one that accompanied Matt Ridley’s article in The Telegraph at the weekend: “CO2 is simply not a danger to human health, and it’s actively good for crops”.
Ridley has a doctorate in zoology, and apparently wrote his thesis on the mating system of the common pheasant, yet has the hubris to contradict basically every climate scientist on the planet on the harms of global warming.
Or we’re subjected to the ramblings of Bev Turner and her solitary brain cell on GB News. She calls Covid the “plandemic” (I’m not joking) and has suggested the whole thing was fabricated by ministers and officials in order to “lay the plans for their lucrative careers” in the pharmaceutical industry.
GB News, of course, has form on this front – having given a platform to Neil Oliver to claim that Covid vaccines cause “turbo cancer” (a statement that Ofcom unfathomably let slide).
Their mode of journalism is only one step removed from witch-hunting – wielding their inked-up pitchforks in the direction of those who think we should treat diseases with medicine rather than leeches.
And yet, in this era of monetised disinformation and distortion, they’ve been given a loudspeaker to project their Monty Python skit to all the land.
Turner even gets a platform to interview the president of the United States – although at least they didn’t talk about the medicinal value of necking bleach.
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Lo and behold, the return of medieval mentalities has been accompanied by the resurgence of medieval diseases.
It was reported at the weekend that dozens of unvaccinated children in north London have caught measles – a disease we were supposed to have eliminated years ago. Research (remember that?) has generally found a steep drop in public trust in vaccinations over recent years.
But the right has been so effective – and relentless – at pushing the “free speech” narrative that the rights of these children to live free of illness is apparently of secondary concern.
In modern Britain, right-wing journalists have protected status to spew radioactive nonsense, at the expense of science and even the health of children.
And it’s taboo in much of the media to question how zealots became the arbiters of our national conversation.
As the pandemic demonstrated, people are willing to trust science – those bastardly “experts” – in order to protect themselves and others.
We made huge sacrifices on the assumption – the reasonable assumption – that the experts knew what they were talking about. That assumption saved hundreds of thousands of lives, led to the rapid development and roll-out of a vaccine, and the return to normality (Trump aside).
We temporarily devolved our collective decision-making to scientists and medics. We tried as best as possible not to listen to people whose expertise barely extends beyond pheasant-shagging (Boris Johnson being the notable exception). And we were better for it.
Those who think this was a mistake – and who are increasingly vocal in the media – are neanderthals posing as sceptics. We need to call them out vocally and repeatedly, or we might as well start the book burnings.
We need a vaccine for the pandemic of stupidity.
GB News is a crucial node for the anti-vax lobby; not usually on the airwaves because of broadcasting law but through its presenters and social media accounts.