160724
The Weekly Sceptic Live The Weekly Sceptic Live The Weekly Sceptic Live
  • Log in
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

Mainstream Media’s Response to the Lockdown Files Proves They Will Never Change

by Nick Dixon
6 March 2023 7:00 AM

The mainstream media has gone into damage control mode over the Telegraph’s ongoing Lockdown Files story. Obviously, not all of the mainstream media, the Telegraph being part of said media, and the Spectator having done a good job too.

But much of the work of honestly analysing the implications of Hancock’s leaked messages has been left to alternative media outlets such as Spiked and, yes, the Daily Sceptic.

Take a look at the Financial Times, for example, and we find an odd piece proclaiming that Matt Hancock is “not so much incompetent as annoying”. True, Hancock comes across so badly in the Lockdown Files that even a puff piece can’t completely exonerate him, but is the takeaway from his many appalling messages really just that he is “annoying”?

This limited acknowledgement of Hancock’s immense folly aside, the article attempts to find some redeeming qualities in the vainglorious ninny:

Hancock’s WhatsApps also show that he persuaded then Prime Minister Boris Johnson not to bring forward the end of lockdown in summer 2020, and to shut schools in January 2021, fearing “a policy car crash when the kids spread the disease”. This has aged much better than, say, Rishi Sunak’s Covid-spreading brainwave of paying people to go to restaurants.

Devi Sridhar in the Guardian goes further, seeing the Files as a justification for her lockdown zealotry, with the main issue being that the Government didn’t act sooner, while another piece in the Observer is titled ‘Anti-lockdowners are out in force, filling a Covid inquiry gap with bogus ideology’.

It claims the Telegraph are “trying to shoehorn the WhatsApp leaks into their own ideological narrative”, thought at least admits that “the story demonstrates one thing beyond question – that it was wrong for the Government to kick the assessment of its Covid record into the long grass by setting up a statutory inquiry that would take years to report”.

Most distasteful has been the attempt to shoot the messenger by attacking Isabel Oakshott’s decision to leak the messages exclusively to the Telegraph, or to release them at all. This issue may be of some interest, but hardly seems the main story. Yet the instinctive reaction of big name journalists has been to try to discredit Oakeshott. 

First Nick Robinson grilled Oakshott about how much she was paid for the messages, as if she handed them over in a sports bag at a meeting near the docks. Cathy Newman then did the same regarding Oakeshott’s contract at TalkTV, and Kay Burley asked why Matt Hancock gave the messages to a “lockdown denier”, whatever that is.

Of course, it’s not surprising that journalistic procedure means more to journalists than to the average person, and I also might think twice now before giving Isabel Oakeshott 100,000 of my private messages. But isn’t all this badgering of the witness a crude attempt by the mainstream media to regain control of the narrative? With perhaps an added element of guilt and embarrassment due to their failure to do their jobs at the time, instead choosing to abet the Government in getting its Covid policies to land, however absurd and unrelated to scientific evidence said polices often were.

It is a depressing reminder that the mainstream media will never change, preferring to consolidate the established narrative than to explore the messy truth.

Perhaps more worryingly still, the public don’t seem to have processed the findings of the Lockdown Files at all. A recent poll in the Sunday Times, admittedly from the always questionable YouGov, finds that 37% of people still think the Government wasn’t strict enough, while 34% think it got it “about right”. Only 19% said its handing of the COVID-19 outbreak was “too strict”, despite it now being undeniable that many of the rules were based on nothing but political expediency and cowardice.

So far the Lockdown Files seem to have merely hardened whatever opinion people already held, with sceptics still in the minority. Or at least that is how the MSM and YouGov might spin it. In reality, I suspect many would refuse to comply with lockdowns or similar restrictions in future.

I hope we never have to find out.

Nick Dixon is Deputy Editor of the Daily Sceptic. You can follow him on Twitter and Substack.

Tags: COVID-19GuardianLockdown FilesMainstream Mediamatt hancockTelegraph

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

News Round-Up

Next Post

No, the Lockdown Files Don’t Prove the Government’s Pandemic Response Was All a Giant Cock-Up

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

33 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

 

DONATE

PODCAST

Nick Dixon and Toby Young Talk About the Attack on Kellie-Jay Keen by Trans Rights Activists, the BBC’s Perverse Insistence on Calling a Rapist “Her” and the Brutal Cancellation of Alfie Brown

by Will Jones
28 March 2023
1

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editors Picks

Britain’s Backlash Against LTNs: Fed-Up Residents Torch Road Blocks Hours After They Were Installed

28 March 2023
by Will Jones

The Great Food Reset Has Begun

28 March 2023
by Will Jones

The Narrative in Retreat

29 March 2023
by Ramesh Thakur

News Round-Up

29 March 2023
by Will Jones

Brussels Cancels Looming Ban on Internal Combustion Engine Cars – U.K. Government “Prepared to Follow Suit”

29 March 2023
by Will Jones

News Round-Up

31

Brussels Cancels Looming Ban on Internal Combustion Engine Cars – U.K. Government “Prepared to Follow Suit”

28

The Narrative in Retreat

23

Britain’s Backlash Against LTNs: Fed-Up Residents Torch Road Blocks Hours After They Were Installed

22

In Defence of Andrew Bridgen’s Speech to Parliament on the Risks vs Benefits of Covid Vaccination

32

COVID-19 Not Responsible for “Explosion” in Heart Deaths, Major Autopsy Study Shows. “Must Be the Vaccine,” Says Top Heart Doctor

29 March 2023
by Will Jones

Findings From a New Faculty Free Speech Survey

29 March 2023
by Noah Carl

In Defence of Andrew Bridgen’s Speech to Parliament on the Risks vs Benefits of Covid Vaccination

28 March 2023
by Norman Fenton, Clare Craig, Martin Neil, Jonathan Engler and Mr Law

The Dumb Chain of Events that Brought Face Mask Tyranny to the West

28 March 2023
by Eugyppius

The Bad Science Behind Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ Anti-Car Crusade

28 March 2023
by Ben Pile

POSTS BY DATE

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Feb    

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Please note: To be able to comment on our articles you'll need to be a registered donor

Already have an account?
Please click here to login Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment