The Role of the Press

Well, I finally did it. It took a few more painful hours viewing but last night I managed to forgo the late news bulletins on Sky and the BBC and listen to music on the radio instead. The media coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic is excruciatingly self-obsessed with doing down everything the Prime Minister and his government do to manage the crisis in our health and economic wellbeing. If there had ever been any pretence that the national media just might have a role in sustaining national morale we are certainly in doubt about how our fearless hacks see their mission. I have mentioned Sky’s odious Sam Coates before and he seems to be hell bent on establishing himself as the so called liberal establishment's version of Lord Haw Haw. Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC and her melodramatic whining through the corner of her mouth sees nothing positive to report. Hours of television and radio are devoted to uncovering loopholes in the great rafts of unprecedented legislation and crisis measures. Nobody in the media, it seems, has a decent thing to say about the Government and yet, in opinion polls, Boris and the Conservatives a riding higher than ever before. Some mistake, surely? Not really if you take a step back and reflect on what has been achieved over the last few weeks. How do the media think the bail-out provisions for whole swathes of industries were enacted, how many hours have civil servants worked in the last three weeks,  how was the O2 hospital constructed and commissioned in just a few days, how did the NHS and the private health sector reorganise the entire care system to provide 30,000 extra emergency beds, how has local government kept services going, how have the Armed Forces and specialist reservists contributed.  And how was all this mobilised and coordinated?  Of course, in many areas we have been exposed as underprepared and there must be an inquest on those apparent failings – but not now, the public recriminations can wait until we are out of danger (there'll be time enough for countin when the dealin's done, advised Kenny Rogers). The list of positive achievement is very long and I apologise if, in selecting a few obvious examples, I have missed a critical achievement that matters to you. Our job is to keep out of hospital and preserve the NHS capacity; to obey orders and isolate. Not very glamorous but eminently bearable. It would be nice, however, to find something positive and morale boosting in the media for a change. Optimism is an essential component of survival. The lofty liberals in the media should get over their resentment for this particular government and reflect on the extent of patriotic duty in a national press organisation. In particular, they may care to mobilise all the experts they have wheeled out recently to rubbish the Government and, instead, ask them to commit their precious advice to a practicable plan for recovery.