Schools: anyone else utterly sick of being manipulated by the press?

[Incogweeto]

Just that really. I’m so sick and tired of logging onto the BBC and finding articles every day promoting whatever viewpoint the government currently wants us to believe. At the moment it’s the onslaught of schools are safe/teachers are safe/tests are a game changer. When they were about to close the schools, the narrative was completely different with kids more likely to be index case/variants will kill is all/out of control vectors.

I’m not saying I agree or disagree with any particular viewpoint in any particular article just that I’m SO SICK of being manipulated. It enrages me that they think we are such pathetic sheep that we can’t see what they are doing.

It’s not just schools, it’s every course of action they want us to take or not take. I hate the PR and the manipulation.

I didn’t realise there was so much manipulation before covid happened. Or how much the media and politics are interlinked. I think a lot of people are sheep, you see it on here all the time - the narrative changes like the wind to suit whatever agenda is on the horizon.

Me too

I think you have to take it for what it is... absolute bollocks.

Like most things with covid, I expect we will know the truth one day. A few things are starting to grate on me so certain things I tune out. If I follow the rules, I have had covid, I have had the vaccine, nothing more on top I can do so I have mentally checked out of the news.

Tell me the key points at key times but I have covid news fatigue. What ever is going on in the covid world, until I see things change, I'm just frozen in hands, face, space and dont see anyone.

The rest is just noise most days

They told us they were going to run a PR campaign telling us that schools are safe and here it is. They should be marked as paid ads in the papers like influencers have to.

They paid Kirsty Gallacher to say schools are safe last September so look out for reassuring safety messages from Holly Willoughby and Myleene Klass this time.

Yes they even said they were going to run a PR campaign. How are more people not angry at being manipulated like this? I absolutely hate being bullshitted.

I am sick of it too. I hadn’t realised how bad it had become but as a teacher I guess I have paid more attention this time as it affects me. I am surprised the media are so willing to cooperate.

Absolutely so sick of it.

The BBC is terrible. This whole 'schools are safe' business is shocking. The government is setting the line, then it's vox pop all the way with only people who agree with it, and journalist who can't ask proper questions.

I love the ONS survey where they looked at a 9 month period from March to December (6 months of which schools were closed) to declare that schools infections amongst teachers weren't high!

Lies, damn lies and statistics...

Oh, and hi to all the government sock puppets on MN.
We can all work out who you are.

The thing is, you’re only being manipulated if you believe what they’re writing. If you don’t, it’s only attempted manipulation.

It's nothing new. The press is owned by the right wing who are pro Tory. They're doing the same with Brexit too. Adverts written by the government put in mainstream media masquerading as articles written by journalists.

There was one written by the government in the Metro the other day. It's only when you look at the author that you realise it's not actually an article, but of course most people just read the massive headline.

This is one of the reasons why the Conservatives are doing so well in the polls considering how badly they have performed on Brexit and Covid. It's also why the right at doing so well across the world. Basically, whoever owns the media shapes public onion, and it's in wealthy people's interests to make sure right wing parties succeed.

And the latest study that checked antibodies in teachers but didn't test the teachers who were off school with covid, or those who were self isolating. Funny how BBC missed out this bit:

'And the data reported in the research only includes individuals who were present in the school on the day of testing. Anyone who had known contact with a positive case or was symptomatic on the day would have been advised to not attend school.

“This could well bias the estimates of infection levels in school downwards,” said Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of applied statistics at The Open University, who was not involved in the study.

Scientists also commented that the research was unable to offer any insight on how and when transmission occurs in schools.

“The design of this study doesn’t allow any clear conclusions to be drawn about that,” Prof McConway added.'

Where I am, the antibody kits all arrived after the deadline for submission. We all therefore had a not tested result. When I tried to email and find out whether I'd tested positive for antibodies - just out of interest! - the email bounced back as the survey had already been closed.

I think part of the reason for it is that people have tuned out partly due to fatigue, partly due to flip flopping. I have no idea what’s going on anymore or what I’m allowed/not allowed to do. I work off the assumption I’m not allowed to do anything except buy food. The problem with that is if they want everyone out in force in coming months for economy, people won’t do it. So they start with the propaganda and PR drives etc to try and get people to listen (to the exact opposite of what they were saying weeks ago).

I agree, and I firmly believe that schools will be closed within two weeks of opening, because the media will whip up all sorts of hysteria over them being "unsafe" and that "all the teachers are going to die" or the kids are taking the covid home to granny etc

I was watching the Lucy Worsley programme on propaganda in the Blitz.

I'm sick of the slogan that schools are safe when they are clearly not.

My son caught Covid at secondary school and had six isolations due to high volume of cases. My other son had three self isolations and his school was forced to close early.
Here we go again.

My FIL used to say "bullshit baffles brains."

The UsForThem campaign has been marketing again today, so I expect the narrative that schools are safe will be pushed even more, seeing how much manipulation goes on.

@middleager I remember you from past threads. I hope your DS has recovered. Here’s hoping for a better term than last.

@middleager

I was watching the Lucy Worsley programme on propaganda in the Blitz.

I'm sick of the slogan that schools are safe when they are clearly not.

My son caught Covid at secondary school and had six isolations due to high volume of cases. My other son had three self isolations and his school was forced to close early.
Here we go again.

My FIL used to say "bullshit baffles brains."

The UsForThem campaign has been marketing again today, so I expect the narrative that schools are safe will be pushed even more, seeing how much manipulation goes on.

If masks are so good elsewhere, wont they also save the schools?

Agree OP. I'm sick of it too. It's been especially bad during covid. All those pics of socially distanced classrooms

"The BBC is terrible. This whole 'schools are safe' business is shocking. The government is setting the line, then it's vox pop all the way with only people who agree with it, and journalist who can't ask proper questions."

Spot on - I have followed the science on this right from the beginning (I was reading the publications coming out in Jan last year) and I was horrified in late Feb at the "carry on as normal, but wash your hands and you'll be fine" message that was everywhere.

The schools are safe one is just one more in a long trail of things that the UK has got completely wrong, but you'd have to be tracking the real science to know it.

SAGE were utterly, utterly wrong about everything at the beginning - Vallance actually told Boris that the virus wasn't that harmful and it probably wouldn't come to the UK so nothing to worry about.

Then they got a bit more clued up, but got largely ignored when the government wanted everything to open back up again - meanwhile the BBC were giving huge amounts of time to fringe scientists like Gupta and Heneghan who insisted the epidemic was over and we all had herd immunity....

Thankfully they've shut up, but now we have the schools are safe message back, despite SAGE predicting a 0.3 to 0.7 rise in R when they open, and ONS data from September/October showing a huge increase in infections amongst children when schools reopened.

The frustrating thing here is that the truth is not THAT unpalatable. Children themselves are almost totally not at risk and their education matters - the only issues are the impact on R, and issues where one or both the parents are highly vulnerable - is it too much to ask for this to have been properly explained and people left to make their own choice?

ps Every time you hear someone say "The science has changed" - it hasn't - not really - it's just an excuse used by people to cover the mistakes made. There is nothing known today about covid that is significantly different from what was suspected last January.

🙄 we can't keep schools shut forever
Covid is just another risk now.
The vaccine will prevent a lot of deaths

@MuddyWalks

Oh, and hi to all the government sock puppets on MN. We can all work out who you are.

Bill Gates says "hi"

"is it too much to ask for this to have been properly explained and people left to make their own choice?" it quickly became clear that instead of an informed and sensible population they were dealing with large numbers of people who let facebook/youtube do their thinking for them.

Read the ADs threads if you doubt it.