For establishment media organs, the coronavirus pandemic has been just another partisan affair to hype to the skies, much like the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump, Russiagate, and any of a thousand other cataclysms that have marred the over-electrified 24-hour news cycle in recent years. But this circus is centered around human health, and people have been hurt. Badly. The editor of a leading German news outlet has expressed his remorse over his publication’s sordid role in terrifying children about COVID. Will there come a day when America’s journalists do the same?
We Made Kids Suffer
Julian Reichelt
(Photo by Jörg Carstensen/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“In a speech delivered to camera,” Julian Reichelt, editor in chief of major German tabloid Bild, has apologized for his paper’s over-the-top coronavirus coverage, Paul Joseph Watson at Summit News reported Aug. 3. “To the millions of children in this country for whom our society is responsible, I want to express here what neither our government nor our Chancellor dares to tell you. We ask you to forgive us,” Reichelt declared. “Forgive us for this policy which, for a year and a half, has made you victims of violence, neglect, isolation, and loneliness.”
“We persuaded our children that they were going to murder their grandma if they dared to be what they are, children,” he continued. “Or if they met their friends. None of this has been scientifically proven.”
While it is refreshing to see a major media editor somewhere in the world issue a mea culpa on the shameless sensationalist coverage of a medical topic, one can’t help but wonder how similar apologies might play out on this side of the Atlantic once the coronavirus alarmism recedes, as one day it surely must. Recent displays of mass media irresponsibility do not bode well.
Whether it be the outrageously flimsy Steele Dossier, which spuriously claimed 2016 presidential candidate Trump had been compromised by Russia, or the disgraceful mega-platforming of sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 based on nothing but decades-old hearsay, corporate media in America seem to operate in an ethics-devoid morass.
Instead of pursuing facts and hard data, establishment outlets brazenly seek out anything that jibes with their preconceived worldview and then attempt to dress it up as “news.” And they don’t care who they harm in the process; the bodies will be sorted out later.
This was bad enough when the political and professional futures of a Trump or Kavanaugh were on the line. When it comes to the coronavirus, millions of human beings have become victims of this hit-and-run journalism.
Emote and Don’t Verify
This country eventually got to the other side of the interminable Russiagate and Brett Kavanaugh spectacles, only to discover fresh new media zeppelins awaiting them. So it will be again when the coronavirus hysteria fades. There may even be some public acts of contrition by our worst media offenders. It’s a part of the game they don’t mind playing. But Americans already know how this works. The disinformation is splashed all over Page One; the correction is confined to a box in the back.
It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, the saying goes. The media version of this comes with the comfortable knowledge that belated “regrets” can always be skirted over with ease. Any coronavirus apology that may come from our pampered media elites will be smug and insincere as they pivot to the next overhyped event on their lineup. And the trail of destruction left in their wake will not trouble them for one instant.
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