It may just be me, but I thought Piers Morgan's criticism of government policy on GMB this morning was totally over the top.
As it happens, with a death toll of 55 up to yesterday, the virus had still killed less Britons than jihadists managed on a single day in 2005 but so far there's no sign of anyone handing out flowers or impromptu street posters yet.
As the punchline of the old story goes, when it comes to the MSM and spinning the truth we've already established they're whores, now we're just arguing about the price.
Apparently, the price depends on whether or not a particular story helps the left, so I guess the MSM will start calming down about the virus as soon as it evolves enough to start filling in postal voting forms. Expect to start hearing about the vast majority of harmless viruses, coupled with glowing profiles of the ones used in gene therapy.
And then there's the other thing. Like I keep saying, 'freedom of the press' is short for 'freedom of the use of the printing press'. It means any citizen is free to set up a printing press and start publishing - or, to put it another way, it means the literal opposite to what the MSM claims it means.
There is no special group of people called 'the press' who have special freedoms over and above the ordinary citizen. That's important because the MSM has spent years supporting all manner of restrictions on the citizen's right to free speech. Remember these people thought it was perfectly sane for the police to prosecute a comedian for Felony Tasteless Comedy.
The MSM has devoted zillons of words to the supposed threat of hate speech, and 90% of their output has referenced the same old cliche about 'shouting fire in a crowded theater'. Now we have the crowded theater of crowded theaters, they've suddenly turned into free speech maximalists. Our democracy apparently depends on their supposed right to ask stupid gotcha questions, push absurd hypotheticals, and promote all manner of loons and malcontents.
This is who they are and whatever happens we should never forget that when we needed unity more than ever - the real sort, not the phoney baloney 'don't look back in anger' sort - these people were happy to act as saboteurs just so they could get one of their own in No 10.
As it happens, with a death toll of 55 up to yesterday, the virus had still killed less Britons than jihadists managed on a single day in 2005 but so far there's no sign of anyone handing out flowers or impromptu street posters yet.
“This job has changed significantly from planning for organic, people responses to tragedy, to being told: ‘We would like the people to do that, how do you get them there?’”
“A lot of the public’s responses are spontaneous, of course. But a lot are shaped. The [British] government doesn’t want spontaneity: it wants controlled spontaneity.”The MSM were prepared to take part in a massive state propaganda campaign to manipulate the public reaction to terror attacks but now the same people claim it's super important that they give airtime to every unhinged conspiracy theorist and quack on the planet.
As the punchline of the old story goes, when it comes to the MSM and spinning the truth we've already established they're whores, now we're just arguing about the price.
Apparently, the price depends on whether or not a particular story helps the left, so I guess the MSM will start calming down about the virus as soon as it evolves enough to start filling in postal voting forms. Expect to start hearing about the vast majority of harmless viruses, coupled with glowing profiles of the ones used in gene therapy.
And then there's the other thing. Like I keep saying, 'freedom of the press' is short for 'freedom of the use of the printing press'. It means any citizen is free to set up a printing press and start publishing - or, to put it another way, it means the literal opposite to what the MSM claims it means.
There is no special group of people called 'the press' who have special freedoms over and above the ordinary citizen. That's important because the MSM has spent years supporting all manner of restrictions on the citizen's right to free speech. Remember these people thought it was perfectly sane for the police to prosecute a comedian for Felony Tasteless Comedy.
The MSM has devoted zillons of words to the supposed threat of hate speech, and 90% of their output has referenced the same old cliche about 'shouting fire in a crowded theater'. Now we have the crowded theater of crowded theaters, they've suddenly turned into free speech maximalists. Our democracy apparently depends on their supposed right to ask stupid gotcha questions, push absurd hypotheticals, and promote all manner of loons and malcontents.
This is who they are and whatever happens we should never forget that when we needed unity more than ever - the real sort, not the phoney baloney 'don't look back in anger' sort - these people were happy to act as saboteurs just so they could get one of their own in No 10.
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