Is the government gagging the BBC?

[lonelyplanet]

During August there were daily stories on the BBC news about the safe reopening of schools. Inaccurate photos of socially distanced desks and classes with only 15 children in them were being widely used.

The schools have now returned and there is silence. There is no information on what is happening and no updates. Why is this?

Last night I watched the BBC Panorama Test and Trace Exposed. Panorama is known for uncovering scandals. The programme interspersed snippets of Boris' speeches with his promises that have fallen flat. However there was no mention of the promise that Test and Trace would be in place for the safe opening of schools. Or for that matter anything about how the Test and Trace has failed schools or been problematic because of schools.

Universities have started to go back this week and there is quite rightly loads of coverage about the problems and issues.

What I would like to know is why is the mainstream media not covering the return to schools? Why can't I find out what is going on nationally? How are schools really affected? Are there lots of children and staff off sick? Are there no reporters out there willing to ask the questions that need asking?

So many questions are not be asked and the answers given not challenged, any program that is out of step is then blocked by the Government - Newsnight, GMB, Channel 4 News

Whatever your political leaning, hardly a free press is it?

How can people make informed decisions if the news media is manipulated in this way?

Tnh if thdyre willing to hide this -so badly wtf else are they hiding

• tbh *they're

Thiscantreallybehappening
"I have "Breaking News on my Sky app that Uni students can go home for christmas" But absolutely nothing reported that thousands of school and college students are back at home with online learning and parents having to juggle work etc. Students trying to get ready for exams next year are being totally forgotten. Sorry for rant angry"

I completely agree. The kids doing exams next year seem to be forgotten. Many have already missed learning (my own dcs included) and have only been back 3 weeks. This is news that needs reporting. The government needs to be planning for these kids not hiding the truth of the situation. The media should be helping here.

I really do worry about the reporting of schools. I think the overall picture is newsworthy -as a parent I would like to know of all cases in my DCs school.

I work in a school ..we had one case and the whole year group went off - a letter went home to inform all parents but this was not reported in local news or on the schools social media.

The next day we had another confirmed case in a different year group ..only close contacts traced so a handful of students sent home (not accurately traced as our SMT want to keep all pupils in school at all costs). The next day two more students from the same year group tested positive and no-one else sent home. No deep cleans and no further letters went home. I would be furious if I was a parent of a student within the year group that has three positive cases yet only a small number of students sent home from tracking.

Also - staff are not allowed to isolate. A teacher came forwards to raise concern as the first pupil who tested positive sits right in front of his desk and felt he should isolate. He was told he should have been 2m from the students at all times and therefore he could not isolate. When you have 32 students in your room it is simply impossible to sit 2m away from all students!

I am PT so not in today however I would have no way of knowing if there was a further case today as staff are also not told the wider picture - only if you teach the year group impacted! Why the secrecy?

The guardian is currently reporting the DoE figures to 24 September. That has 93% of schools fully open ( albeit the % not fully open has risen from 4 - 6%.

So doesn’t seem to be any gagging. And whilst it’s worth watching atm the vast majority of schools are fully open. Which is surely a good thing.

The BBC has been toothless since the Iraq War when it was punished for supporting David Kelly. The Government responded by effectively reducing its income by over 20% leading to major staff losses and enough salami slicing to open an Italian sandwich shop. Ever since it has meekly done whatever Whitehall tells it to do. (Im an ex BBC employee)

I just saw it reported that 16% of secondaries are closed in some way (to groups for example) more than the previous week. Local BBC is covering local schools closures as well. But nothing on the scale of the uni coverage.

Yes secondaries seem to be being harder hit.

I’ve seen this reported quite widely today? I think it’s really only now we are getting days through on schools ( and can compare week one week).

[quote Fetaliving]@GreyishDays Are the outbreaks at university treated as one or several? Or is track and trace so terrible they have no idea and just class it as one. Probably the latter. The situation in schools and universities are both terrible and we need better testing to get a grip on it.[/quote]
I imagine if they have 50 students at one university then that’s one outbreak. 30 at another is then another.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54341418

This is the one I noticed today..

Laura K's head is so up the government and Boris' bum it is unreal.

Orangeblossom7777 "www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54341418

This is the one I noticed today.."

Finally! Do you think someone has been reading this thread!!

Still no mention of the situation in Primary schools though.

There was hardly anything else for ages though...and again the other one I saw also mentioned all the stuff about what the education minister said etc etc in fact just the same.

Officially gagging, no.

Leaning on and persuading the BBC to broadcast a lot of fluff, presumably.

I think newsnight and R4 do a decent job but BBC news is so light it's frustrating.

BBC news just said schools are exempt as they are 'Covid secure'... whatever that means 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I have noticed the BBC do tend to push stories to go with the aim of the government at the time. For example when it was 'back to work in offices' there were sad stories about the people working in coffee shops and running those in town centres. That all stopped when the message changed. The message now is keep schools open so that may influence it I suppose.

Covid secure is another daft phrase to try and pressure people they are 'safe'. Lot of rubbish

I think the BBC is running scared of the government. It knows they are itching to do away with the licence fee. Unfortunately it means they won't report as robustly as they otherwise would do.

My school had a year group bubble close and we were all forbidden from discussing it anywhere on social media, including WhatsApp.
Dark references were made to our staff code of conduct.

This was in the Mail yesterday
Interesting that the main thrust of the article is actually about hospitality venues being unfairly targeted, and that the school stats are just mentioned in passing.

It is true that staff are not allowed to refer to or publicly talk about any closures. Parents tip off press.

I'm not sure how much the papers are leaned on, but I think the narrative of "schools are open" even if 90% aren't will be important to Boris.

There are still people around saying that it isn't spread in schools, despite the weekly surveillance report describing "outbreaks" as at least two cases that they decide are linked by the setting ie not linked by home or community spread. The "one offs" that these posters feel all school cases are don't even appear in the PHE report.

If you don't think that you're hearing the true story from the BBC, for whatever reason, there are plenty of other places you can get news from. Channel 4 is more left-leaning, if that's your thing, also ITV, Sky, Al Jazeera, LBC, etc, etc. Each has its own 'take'. Then there are newspapers and magazines of all stripes. Some foreign channels and publications report on UK from time to time. And Twitter, Facebook etc - each give points of view and some people rely on them.

Look at everything, weigh up what they say against your own experience and try to decide how reliable each is. How does the BBC compare?

My school had a year group bubble close and we were all forbidden from discussing it anywhere on social media, including WhatsApp.
Dark references were made to our staff code of conduct.

Shocking 😮