To think the media should be banned from reporting on panic buying...

[Fieldsoftripe9]

Why on earth are the media allowed to report on this when all it does is cause further mass panic buying? Surely anyone with common sense sees how it influences people to do the same, then we have the same situations as last time when you couldn't get things like paracetamol without visiting multiple shops (kind of defeats the point about mixing with as few people as possible). Of course, it's freedom of speech but I don't see how it's anything but harmful in a pandemic.

Well, if you say the press can't report on panic-buying then what will be the next thing they are told they can't report on? Will it be something the public find offensive? Something the Govt don't want us to know?

We can't give up freedom of the press because you don't like the behaviour of the readers. We need to educate the readers, if anything (or accept that everyone responds to situations differently).

I think the media should be banned from sensationalist reporting at all. The way they have constantly been telling us that disaster is just around the corner for a whole myriad of things over years and decades (your mobile phone is killing you, paedophiles are working in your child's school etc.) is one reason why many of us are thinking "yeah, whatever" when they scream some Covid doom and gloom.

Yes, freedom of speech, press should be free. But to be honest, is it really a free press? I'm getting the impression that the government are being extremely active in silencing anyone who doesn't conform the the lockdown zealotry, and the tools to do this have been in place for a long time.

I think their reporting is sensationalist and unhelpful (to put it mildly) but I don’t think they should be prevented from reporting it. I’m not a fan of censorship. Sometimes the bollocks is the price you pay for a free press.

I agree OP. I think the government are already influencing what is reported on so why don't they restrict this topic?