The Press, Lockdown and Covid

Watching Breakfast TV and the announcer just said ...we will be attempting to assess what the PM will be saying later on in his announcement....WHY !!!!
By the time they have done speculating what restrictions will be lifted the Press will be printing them as fact..
This is why so many are now breaking the rules, even heard people saying we will be out and about soon, WHO SEZ......it's really time in this country that the Press and TV were brought to heel because if we don't and people start to take their speculating as fact the 30k already sadly lost will look like a drop in the ocean.....

 

To be fair, the government have been building up this speech since Thursday - it's like it's Fury v Wilder.

"Stay tuned on Sunday evening. 7pm. The speech we've been waiting for. Johnson is BACK! What will he say? What will he do? Tune in. 7pm. Sunday night"

People are going to speculate. If there's an announcement or an update, I wish they'd just make it. Stop the bullsht that precedes it.

 

keep the lock down till deaths fall rapidly. At least another 2 weeks for me.

 

Some of the tabloids have been completely irresponsible over all this and effectively implying that 'freedom' is starting on Monday.

 

I understand the "government" leak these ideas out to certain friends in the media, see what the reaction is and then refine what message is going to come out. Proper leadership.

 

It boils my P**s that all parties use media to get max exposure and then we get so many interpretations.
Wake up in morning and tv news and press report
“Today the xyz party will announce that .......”
It’s then on all day, with different slants and opinions based on their political stance
The evening news then says
“The xyz party today announced......”
Next morning its
“Yesterday the xyz party said ......” along with supporters and opposite side comments

we have had a week of press 2nd guessing what will he said and what won’t along with leaks and ‘expert’ opinions, often contradictory to each other.

is it any wonder that people had Garden parties over the weekend, is it any wonder that traffic increased massively, is it any wonder that more people than needed to be will likely have been infected and likely spread it even more.

we live in a world of politics where how they communicate with press is more important than policy. Then we get totally ridiculous questions at daily briefing that often start with “ do you apologise for .....”
or “why didn’t you see this happening “ and “ do you agree it could have been done better”

Sadly it’s clear to me that press run this country and dictate policy, the Politicians simply give sound bites to please the people who vote red or blue.

Our country is basically a business with millions of stakeholders. It generates income in different ways, and spends it on trying to please as many as they can, to then get to keep their jobs. Just the same as a CEO of a big business does. I’ve seen posts on here commenting about multi million £ salaries and bonuses for CEO’s ..... I was going to say that maybe they could do better... then I thought of USA

in a nutshell, the leaders should lead, should be clear with communication and not give little tasters of news in advance which is then dissected and spun.

we need clear leadership... end of... if we don’t like what’s said, at least people would have respect that they are clear and understand what is and isn’t required

 

I really, really don’t understand the delay. As you say it’s just led to speculation, changes in behaviour and what’s more it’s clearly completely illegal and flies in the face of their own legislation that demands review inside three weeks.

 

It boils my piss when a Tory govt is in charge and people criticise by condemning all party’s but when a Labour govts in charge they lay the blame squarely on Labour .

 

The Government has done quite a bit of mixed messaging on its own to confuse.

 

Sorry but don’t agree.

Also my post was about how press confuse this, and it does affect all parties regardless of who is in government.

 

Agree that we need clear leadership and communication

 

The government leaks the announcements to it's tame newspapers to make sure we all know pretty much in advance what most of the message will be.
It's a way of diluting the reaction.
The changing of the slogan means the message will no longer be "stay home"
However Boris and his snake team (sorry COBRA) dress it up, they are preparing us for exiting the lockdown, be it now or in a few weeks.
If a resurgence occurs and infections rocket, it will be our fault for not being alert

 

All parties leak their statements. That’s the thing, they all do it.... and as someone else said, then tinker and change based on popularism. just say it, and do it.

 

My post was nothing to do with party politics

If it was a labour government behaving like this I would post the same

 

Doesn’t matter what the other party’s do though does it?
They aren’t in charge so Starmer and the other party’s can leak what they want to the press because it’s immaterial it carry’s no weight ,
It’s the Govt that should be criticised but as I said when it’s Tory’s the condemnation includes all party’s which dilutes the blame .

 

I think the comment...

“However Boris and his snake team (sorry COBRA)”

led me to believe it was to do with party politics. Apologies if I misunderstood your comment

 

I think one of the roles of the press and TV is to ask questions of the government. Your statement sounds alarmingly like that of a totalitarian regime. If official statements were clear, unambiguous and transparent, then the questions from the press wouldn't ask so many challenging questions.

 

But it does carry weight.. as it gets reported. Not being “in charge” carries the same moral responsibilities.
Any and ALL of the parties should be clear and lead rather than just criticise. I say it now and said it when Labour was in government

 

Why not just lay the blame where it resides ? At number 10 Downing Street .
It just seems nonsense to me that non government bodies gets blame for government decisions .
It’s like the Trump followers that blame the Democrats for all of Trumps Blunders whenever he makes a speech denying his actions .

 

No problem, it was directed at the current government and it's poor response, poor decision making, confusing advice, lack of action, lack of leadership, manipulation of statistics and much more.
Whichever colour was in power would attract the same criticism from me if they did the same