Does anyone find sobbing nurses etc in The News every night, in any way helpful?

[Miljea]

.... or does this footage rapidly lose its impact?

I sort of feel 'Yes, we know, and if the first months of footage failed to shock and awe, this won't!'. If anything, all it does is to numb people.

Ditto the non-contextualised rolling statistics.

Do you think it's an actual strategy, to bombard us with this? If it is, I fear it's not working.

FTR I'm coalface, Covid facing, full PPE NHS, tho not ICU.

But I have got up and personal with Covid that is killing people. Including in ICU.

But I don't think the News' blanket slightly blurry footage of HCPs all kitted up going about their business, interspersed with interviews with sobbing nurses- really helps. I have even heard the 'for God's sake, it's their job' remarks (at the hairdressers, when they were briefly open, TV on).

That person was argued with by her mate, but I do wonder whether too much of this sort of coverage makes people weary of it.

But will it change behaviour? I don't think it will. Do you really think a 19 year old in Aberdeen or Manchester who was planning a house party for the weekend will reconsider because of something the BBC puts out?

Firstly, they won't see it, because they get their news online or are watching something on Netflix. And they will think it's not relevant to them.

The fantastical notion that many people have that Western democracies are these arenas where brilliant ideas representing the whole spectrum of human thought fairly and squarely battle it out across the public sphere is ludicrous. Democracy is the mangy half eaten slice of cake left over once the financial elites and their political puppets have mangled, manipulated and devoured the other 90%
I voted Corbyn even though he was left of me on some issues of economy and I would have lost out financially as a six figure salary earner - because I realize that Britain is rotten to the core and badly in need of a shake up. Here was someone who for all his faults, was NOT beholden to the financial elite, the monarchy, the global elite, the massive corporations, the arms industry, big oil, Facebook/Twitter, the public schools, etc, So despite all his faults he got my vote for the second time. But seems most are happy enough fighting for the dregs and more of the same corruption and trickle up economics.

I don't watch tv & turn off radio I don't like. To be honest, bbc radio is artificially cheerful this last year.

My obtuse question of the day: 600k persons die per year in UK. 1643/day. So current death rate is a bit less than double usual. Obviously the very upset staff are not used to mere double the usual death rate they see. Current experience is far worse than double. Do most deaths usually happen at home or in hospices?

Honestly, with the stranglehold that Facebook/Twitter are now threatening to exert on our democracies and the limits of free speech, Corbyn (again, for all his faults) could possibly have been the last time for 100 years (ever?) of a real political reformer having a platform to challenge the interests of big money, tech, the establishment. He - through luck, complacency, and big tech not quite having their game together managed to slip through the cracks. Arguably Sanders too in the US. That could be it now. I doubt it will ever happen again in this policed society controlled by corporate tech giants.

I switched the bbc news on this morning, I really wish I hadn’t. It was a very sombre presenter showing us images of very sick patients in monklands hospital. Tonight it will be fergus Walsh predicting as bad as he can.

They are absolutely incapable of presenting a balanced view. It makes me think the producers must have serious anxiety,

I am a HCP , I know what an intensive care unit looks like. Did n't like the footage on breakfast this am. Not what my 14yo Dd needs to see before she starts on her online schooling.

@Bluntness100
Nothing to do with anxiety. The BBC is a mouthpiece for the values and agenda of British government, British establishment, and monarchy. They follow what they want them to follow. The propaganda is delivered more skillfully and nuanced than Chinese State Television, but its purpose is identical.

Hear, Hear!

My mum died 3 weeks ago and I have to turn anything like this off now, I don’t understand how our visiting was so restricted to 1 hour only 2 of the same people allowed yet several camera crews and reporters can go in to hospital. The last time I hugged my mum was February 2020 and ill never get to again, yet they can go in filming makes no sense to me.

The BBC provides a very fair and objective summary of the positions and views held within the ranks of the British establishment.

I’m not a fan of weeping morticians and consultants (not nurses) as entertainment but I do think people still don’t understand what our hospitals and primary care services are coping with at the moment.

‘Laying it on thick’ suggests an over egging rather than a downplaying; some trust staff don’t have time to talk on camera they are so, so busy. Some healthcare staff are terrified - they have vulnerable parents, children with SEN and other caring responsibilities too. Many are in ‘at risk groups’ their mortality rate exceeds that of the general population.

I suspect a few tears to ensure people have some notion of what it’s like is no bad thing. I’m amazed how many continue to struggle in day after day, after day. Not seeing daylight, not seeing those who often support them, putting themselves at risk with inadequate PPE outside of critical care.

Absolutely agree 100% OP. Had exactly the same conversation whilst it was on. I'm also an HCP and my colleagues and I are also completely fed up of the way the BBC are laying this on. You can almost feel the desperation to win BAFTAs on the back of this. Compassion fatigue is absolutely a thing and this constant grief mongering is cementing it for many people.

I think it is a confirming bias (not sure if this is the right term), in the way that people who do take CV19 seriously will be affected by the coverage, but people who do not, will understand the staff is exhausted but will rationalise it using other arguments.

Generally, I would think it news agency want to affect behaviour, they need to shorten the summary and then provide ideas on how to help (even if most people know them).

Isn't it part of being a transparent society to show the reality on the wards, though? I remember a few weeks back lots of people saying we are not shown anything and the NHS Trusts are not allowing the media in etc.

Hopefully it will make some people think - better than only seeing random Facebook covid deniers post about empty hospital wards and it all being made up.

Agree. It just feels like pity porn now, but DH and I are totally numb to it.

It's so effing depressing and relentless I don't even watch the news in telly. So, it loses impact because people just switch off.

@atomt

Isn't it part of being a transparent society to show the reality on the wards, though? I remember a few weeks back lots of people saying we are not shown anything and the NHS Trusts are not allowing the media in etc.

Hopefully it will make some people think - better than only seeing random Facebook covid deniers post about empty hospital wards and it all being made up.

It's too selective to be transparent.

Basic transparency would be including the average age of Covid death alongside the daily death figures (for example) or how that 38,000 in hospital with covid out of a population of 66.6 million works out percentage-wise.

The news is very much being used as a political tool by those in power to absolve them from blame by hammering home the lockdiwn/severity of the virus message, so none of us can accuse the government of not taking it seriously enough.

(personally I think thats gone OTT now and the government are scrabbling about to appear form and definate to cover up their own relative incompetence). But, hey. The UK has one of the strictest lockdiwns in Europe (internal travel ban and all). We can't possibly blame the government now.

@shindiggery

What I find strange is, you're saying you're worried that other people might stop caring about the nurses etc but if you personally were to do your little bit to make that happen, this would be the perfect way to go about it.

I agree with pretty much everything you have said shindiggery The lack of compassion on this thread is eye opening - be it from ‘compassion fatigue’ or it actually being a normal state, who knows.

And the faux surprise at realising how journalism works...

Really annoys me.
I know the conditions are awful so I shouldn't be pissed off when I see people crying about it but I am.
Nobody's listening to me sobbing. I'm single. Live alone. Both parents dead. No brothers and sisters. Haven't seen any of my friends since the summer when the restrictions in the country I live in were briefly eased.
My business is going down the toilet rapidly. I've got next to no money coming in. I'm not getting government help. I cannot afford to buy anything about from the absolute basics of food.

I'm not the only one suffering like this.
Then we have to watch nurses crying on TV. It does make me angry and that probably does make me a bad person.

Tbh I don’t watch the news as it’s pretty poor

But I don’t mind the odd radio interview showing emotion, that usually gets me, but it’s rarer and feels authentic to me

i definitely have compassion fatigue, i just turn them off now.. its just ALL the bbc talk about, every fucking programme, every goddam panorama.

we KNOW people are dying, we KNOW the poor buggers working for the NHS are exhausted, and overworked and that the situation is fucking horrendous.. but we do not need it shoved in our faces every time we turn the TV on.

Its on twitter, insta, fb, tiktok, radio, in the newspapers. Those of us complying are just getting worn down by it, the people not complying at this point are not going to suddenly start giving a shit.

i dont need to see the BBC exploiting some poor grieving man and his daughters grief by them reading out the last letter they wrote to their wife/mum before she got put in a ventilator and then died before she got to read it herself, i really dont.

Yes, I keep wishing Clive Myrie would stop doing daily reports from the mortuary. I think it is compassion fatigue, which is never about not caring but is a defence against the horror we are exposed to. People are struggling. They have changed their behaviour. That's not going to change the hospital situation quickly.

Same here OP. I'm a nurse working across a whole hospital (peripatetic role so not on any specific ward/area but see patients on all). There's a time and a place for being upset, and on television is not it. These staff need support, supervision etc... not to be paraded on the tv whilst in a vulnerable moment.

The BBC news item last night only gave limited information about just 2 patients. One was in their "mid twenties" and the other was 28. If I did not know that serious illness from coronavirus is rare in this age group then I would have come away from watching this item believing that coronavirus was a bigger danger to young people than it is.

Selective reporting without context can add up to misinformation. I find it difficult to believe that this was accidental. Were the two young patients who were seriously ill being exploited to scare people?

@WetJan

Same here OP. I'm a nurse working across a whole hospital (peripatetic role so not on any specific ward/area but see patients on all). There's a time and a place for being upset, and on television is not it. These staff need support, supervision etc... not to be paraded on the tv whilst in a vulnerable moment.

I don't "blame" the NHS staff. They were being used...