Ministers met with television bosses during Covid to persuade them to push pro-vaccine storylines in soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street, it has emerged. The Telegraph has the story.
Freedom of information (FoI) requests reveal that officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) secretly met with ITV, the BBC and Channel 4, among others, calling for “national unity programming”.
Critics described the meetings as “brazen state interference”, while Sir David Davis, the former Brexit secretary who fought against vaccine mandates, said it amounted to “underhanded propaganda” by the government.
“What this demonstrates is that during Covid, the government reduced the broadcasters to mere arms of the state,” he said.
“Of course, it was important to tell the public about the efficacy and safety of vaccines, but the state should never resort to underhanded propaganda of this nature.”
Heavily redacted documents show that as early as February 2nd 2020 – more than a month before the first lockdown – DCMS met with Dame Carolyn McCall, the chief executive of ITV, to “test the possibility” of pro-vaccine messaging.
A briefing note shows that the Department of Health wanted to write to broadcasters asking them to “include vaccine storylines in their soaps”, but DCMS considered a letter inappropriate given the “importance of broadcasters’ operational and editorial independence.”
However, DCMS said it would meet privately with ITV to “explore” the issue.
It noted that ITV was planning soap storylines about climate change and so “may be amenable to the idea of something similar in relation to vaccine messaging”.
Oliver Dowden, the former culture secretary, and John Whittingdale, the former minister for media and data, also met with Dame Carolyn, as well as Tony Hall, the BBC’s former director-general, and Alex Mahon, the chief executive of Channel 4 in March and April 2020.
Among the discussions were plans to “introduce health messages in soap stories”. Ms Mahon agreed that Channel 4 would “reinforce Public Health England guidance” and target young people through its YouTube channel.
Pro-vaccine messaging did end up in soaps. In one episode of EastEnders in April 2021, Patrick Trueman told Suki Panesar he felt like he had “won the lottery” after getting his second vaccination.
In the same clip, Karen Taylor was accused of being an “anti-vaxxer” for worrying that they had developed the vaccine too quickly.
Worth reading in full – especially as at the bottom of Sarah Knapton’s news report is an excellent article by Laura Dodsworth.
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