to Wish the journalists were not part of the daily briefing

[9millioncansofbeans]

Am I being unreasonable ?
I feel like, In general, the scientists give a very sound reasonable explanation of any updates and plans and why they won’t announce plans.
And then every day the journalists ask questions which have been covered. And actually today’s really annoyed me, as one journalist said people are worried the reasons you won’t discuss how we will come out of lockdown is because it’s going to go on for 18 months... well I was not worried about that but now I am!!
I wish they We’re not part of the daily briefing.

I think the difficult questions will be swerved though. Even in a crisis, politics is key. It won’t be long before they blame their civil servants and the scientists!

18 months is in the table due to vaccine production times. Some people think vaccination is vital to restore normality. Hence the thoughts and questions. At some stage ruin vs health will have to be discussed.

But they have said that normality won’t resume until we can get a vaccine. Which will take 18 months. So it’s quite reasonable to ask what they expect life to look like during those 18 months?

It is the quality of the question that is the problem, and the sheer repitition day after day or even in the same briefing. Sure we all want quick, easy answers, but there aren't any and at this stage it's either going to result in a diplomatic version of "I don't know" or a back of a fag packet response like Gove and the exercise (a man with clearly less stamina than my 7 year old...)

Every other day so there is less repitition and double the material to work with, or questions from industry leads is a better idea.

Holding politicians to account is important, but some of the questions really aren't doing that. It reminds me of being a teacher, clearly explaining to the class and being asked about what I just explained by a teenager who clearly wasn't listening.

Unfortunately being a pandemic, the world needs millions of PPE items at the same time as us. Unfortunately with the pandemic originating in the country that made much of the PPE, they held on to what they were producing to meet their own needs. It's all very well adapting and switching to making our own, but there is no point if it is not fit for purpose and all of this takes time. The same with testing. If we are having difficulties with scaling reliable testing, how are we so sure about the reliability of testing in other countries? Is their testing reliable? Is it actually producing useful outcomes and data?

I'd like to see more global coverage of the way the world is being affected and its management.

You are assuming that everything is included in the briefing that could be and that it is factual and not merely hopeful. They should question assuming this. Some of the briefings are political. They are spin. This should be called out.

The journalists are in their homes. Do they have a chance to get together to formulate questions? Do they know who has been chosen? They are competing news agencies. This is why there should be better scrutiny by select committees and opposition politicians.

The original question which irritated me was about being in lock down for 18 months. I stand by that being a stupid question. A) Even if it were true it would cause carnage for the government to announce it this early. B) do they honestly think the response will be “shit, we did the whole presentation and I forgot to say. Yep, you are all inside until August 2021”

In the context of the Health Minister tweeting the night before that we would not exit full lockdown until there was a vaccine, it was a pretty reasonable one tbh. It’s part of the job of media to spot inconsistencies and clarify them.

Press conferences and briefings don’t exist in isolation, which is why televising them makes people think the journos are shit. But you haven’t been at the lobby briefing, had briefings and calls from third parties with their own version of what the facts are, and it’s part of their role to get a clear, definitive statement from the government - or clearly show where there isn’t one.

The press briefing isn’t the product and for the vast majority of journalists the product isn’t the clip, it’s the information they can try to garner to fit a wider story they’re putting together, particularly for the print lot.

I do maintain that the current format is disastrous as often I understand the journalists can’t/don’t quite hear each other’s questions and it allows the ministers briefing way too much control. And they’re better at the moment when the health and science correspondents are getting involved, because the real news is in the science so David Shukman, Fergus Walsh, Tom Clark, Tom Whipple et al are able to be much more probing and have better contacts in the health and science sector.

I’m not a journalist but I’ve worked on the other side of this for many years.

For all those who think we shouldn't have the press at the errrmmm press briefing, you need to live in North Korea, have the 'leaders' go on every channel simultaneously and have them not be held to account by anyone. In other words a dictatorship.

Yes, I agree, sometimes the questions are inane, but occasionally Raab or whoever are pulled up on what they said. 'I guarantee we will be testing 100,000 by the end of the month'.
They're not even up to 20,000 at the moment. They need to be questioned forcefully as to where that went wrong.
As well as some other brilliant questions posted by @Havanananana

Yeah and pulling them up on numbers of ppe and how many days it’s for

Have you tried asking these questions you have via the media? Ie old fashioned letters to the editor? I'm sure if a paper is getting intelligent questions sent to then that might reveal a scoop they will use them....

@Roussette “'I guarantee we will be testing 100,000 by the end of the month'.
They're not even up to 20,000 at the moment. They need to be questioned forcefully as to where that went wrong.”

It’s not going wrong. They have got the capacity to test more than double the amount of tests being administered right now. It is not a supply issue, it is a demand issue.

Why then are there people everywhere saying they couldn't get tested? Why no test and trace?

Why are the BBC reporting different?

From the article..
"Can I get tested?
Testing is not yet available for most people.

At the moment, tests are reserved for seriously ill patients in hospital and for certain key workers.

This means that if even if you develop symptoms, but you don't work in one of those roles, then you can't currently find out if you have coronavirus"

So if I, a member of the public, wanted to be tested, I couldn't. There is a demand issue whatever you say.

There are mixed messages though. They are saying they have offered tests yet not enough NHS workers came forward to have them. We don’t know why. Who were they intending to test with 100,000 tests (I cannot remember if that was daily or weekly!)? What was the plan?

They don't seem to ask awkward questions. Sometimes the ask questions that have already been given an answer.

It's not that ... it's just that in a democracy (which we have, as opposed to China etc which has an autocracy) it's that views, or opinions, or even research has to be held to account, by other people challenging it. To get as close as we can to the truth, opinions, or even facts have to be challenged. OP you mention science but there are no unchallenged scientific facts at the moment, regarding CV. The most prolific or most important scientists will encourage or want to have peer review. It's why it's vitally important to have a political opposition in this country . People challenging and questioning is so important. It's what allows us to move forwardx

I hate the political bias of the journalists but they need to ask questions

I'm sick of the journalists, they should fuck off.