'New normal' tactic not so new.

28 April 2020

Southampton & District Green Party are fraught after journalists from the Sunday Times have been barred from asking questions during corona virus briefings.

Using the latest tool in the box that some governments are using to punish
newspapers which are not printing good things about them, the UK government has sunk to the lowest depths of political game play by punishing journalists for not being on message during the Covid-19 crisis.

It is well documented that Boris Johnson was sacked from the Times for inventing an historical story and he has a catalogue of events surrounding his career being put on hold due to telling stories with little focus on the real facts.

The Prime Minister is running scared as he himself envisages a steady stream of stories released into the public domain where true facts are disregarded similarly to his own style of communications?

The government has though made a change to the protocol surrounding the Covid-19 crisis briefings. The CEO of the Society of Journalists is Ian Murray the previous editor of the Southern Daily Echo (our local newspaper), here is what he had to say yesterday on the public being allowed to ask questions during the Covid-19 crisis briefings.

"There is nothing for the media to be afraid of here provided the
government is true to its word in not playing a role in choosing
questions to be asked. But the government in turn should not expand the
initiative to drown out the media who will have researched their line of
questioning to seek answers often to issues and topics the public will
not have considered."

Our local Green Party believe the public deserve a balanced view to be published in newspapers and as Boris spreads the tentacles of fear across the media we will not be seeing the cold facts surrounding this government's actions being published. With so much wrangling and fingerpointing we hope that the governement will foot the bill for a public inquiry after the pandemic has subsided. 

 

End. 

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