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.

[quote BunsyGirl]@Hugepeppapigfan Average life expectancy in the Ivory Coast is 57 so they don’t have the same urgency to vaccinate older people as we do.[/quote]
Assume they are just following the WHO guidance which is to vaccinate healthcare and other frontline workers first to protect social infrastructure.

[quote BunsyGirl]@Hugepeppapigfan Average life expectancy in the Ivory Coast is 57 so they don’t have the same urgency to vaccinate older people as we do.[/quote]
And the US?

@ChloeDecker As a parent I (selfishly) want teachers to be vaccinated to help keep schools open. However, I completely understand that the U.K. vaccination programme has been designed to mimimise risk of death and hospitalisation. I therefore support it for the greater good of the country as a whole. The US health system has never put the country as a whole first so I feel that comparisons with it are completely pointless. Age and vulnerability are the biggest risk factors for Covid.

The press has always ignored somethings and presented a biased picture and it does manipulate popular opinion. I am sure the bbc in particular has lost its teeth over the licencing issue. My mum says al jazeera has good news reporting if you want a change.

It’s money and hospital beds isn’t it.

The government don’t want to spend billons on actually making schools safe, they see no economic benefit from it and couldn’t give a shit about the widening attainment gap. Much better to muddle through chaotically as at least it’s cheap.

Teachers vaccines are a different issue. Someone probably did a calculation to show that if all schools went back, X teachers would end up in ITU, not enough to overwhelm the nhs as there are now beds for them all, so that’s ok. (Might even be a Brucie bonus if a few die off and there are savings on their teachers pensions). Plenty of new young teacher applicants to take their place so schools will still be staffed. Too complicated and slow to collect occupational data to prioritise by job (probably true, look at how group 6 is slowing things down).

I suspect there was a media blackout in the autumn until it couldn’t be ignored any longer (last week in December term). We know the media does not actually report independently. We know the government know schools are vectors of transmission. We know Whitty was opposed to schools returning Big Bang style on 8th, it was knowledge a couple of weeks ago. We know school environments by their very definition are perfect for covid to spread. We know we are being gaslighted into obedience. The politicians don’t give a shit, as their statisticians have calculated that there are enough beds for us.

It will be interesting to read autobiographies in future years to see if they spill the beans.

Schools have pretty much also been told/ encouraged/forced to engage in the PR machine. They have to follow a script on the LFTs and are instructed to be positive in their messaging. Hence the struggles parents such as a PP are having with engaging with school.

All the positive quotes about the smoothness of testing and the wonderful mitigation measures used by the DfE which then often make it on to the BBC come from selected executive principals of MATs. The DfE is also busily promoting further academisation of schools via this route.

The same media machine has already kicked in about the GCSE and A Levels. Certain pressure groups are very vocal about this too and yet their views do not match the findings of Ofqual's own survey. However, it is their views which make it into the press.

[[https://youtu.be/1rmAi9XmlIo “Stop watching the news/

Because the news contrives to frighten you/

To make you feel small and alone/

To make you feel that your mind isn't your own...”]]

@Lemons1571

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.

Yes same here. I just ignore most of it these days. My eye rolling is preserved now for all the nonsense about “new variants”. Who swallows all this bullshit?

I’m expecting more scary shit in the next few weeks as we get to a year of lockdown and people being fed up and ignoring it but then all party central a few weeks later as the government realise they have done a too good job of scaring the shit out of us.

So predictable.

Press manipulation is happening now with Scotland and Nicola Sturgeon too. Full of stories about people calling for her to resign to discredit the SNP’s move for another independence referendum but barely a peep about Hancock last week.

@Username198

Press manipulation is happening now with Scotland and Nicola Sturgeon too. Full of stories about people calling for her to resign to discredit the SNP’s move for another independence referendum but barely a peep about Hancock last week.

To be fair, she does need to resign. That MH does too does not change that.

But which one is the press full of stories on, they’ll force her out but Hancock will stay.

I’ve just presumed the BBC were told to tow the government line at all times otherwise their license fee issue will come to a head rather quickly

Channel 4 otoh have lost themselves down the woke hole.

They trip themselves up constantly to ensure their woke credentials on every story. It’s so tedious

@Username198

But which one is the press full of stories on, they’ll force her out but Hancock will stay.

Yes. It is wrong that MH issue has been swept under the carpet.

And Hancock is the tip of the Tory iceberg - Patel is another one for starters

@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.

Agree.

No doubt the photographs of 'safe schools' will come around again - half full classes with children sat miles apart. It's almost like they've lost all the photographs of normal schools somewhere - maybe the covid virus destroyed them all.

There was an article yesterday that was about the DFE - they'd said that some ridiculously high percentage of primary schools didn't follow the 2m SD guidelines and seemed to be suggesting that they should have been doing so then all would be well, so it was all schools fault if they had cases. No ]thing in the article to say they realised that SDing isn't even vaguely possible in most classrooms and at key stage 1/reception it's not even expected using their own guidelines.

Another suggesting that schools are at fault for not insisting on open windows - again nothing to explain that some schools don't have opening windows and many are so old the windows no longer open, haven't done for decades.

Oh, and that teachers (they only ever say teachers rather than all school staff - another way to lay blame) caught covid in the staff room from colleagues rather than in a crowded classroom. Yet, the schools I know have didn't have open staff rooms, or only had access for coffee/microwave facilities, and even then it was 2m+ SD and restricted numbers.

The media is very clear with their agenda. It's back to 'all schools are safe' and the only reason covid gets into schools is because of those pesky teachers mixing together.

I teach. I'm happy to be returning on Monday.
Yes, I caught covid and most likely it came from school, highly likely via a child.

But whilst happy to be returning, partly for my own well-being tbh, I would like - for once - for the media to be honest about what schools are like and why they simply can't (not won't) follow the governments guidelines.

Plenty of new young teacher applicants to take their place so schools will still be staffed.

Don’t agree with this as there are already massive teacher shortages (our local school has been down two English teachers for nearly a year now) and this is about to get a hell of a lot worse as the trickle of recruitment will dry up further now the public has seen how teachers are discarded and vilified.

Agree with everything else you wrote though.

Agree with every word @Abraxan - I was enraged the other day by an offensive article (BBC I think) patronisingly saying that schools should really use the wonderful weapon that is an open window. As if teachers are refusing or too stupid?!

It’s frustrating how often people say on here ‘No cases/few cases in our school but the teachers had it so we had to isolate’. It’s roaringly naive to think that the most likely place a teacher for it wasn’t in the room crammed with kids where they spend 6 - 8 hours a day.

'Plenty of young teacher applicants.' Don't know on what planet you live, but this is so wrong. There's a shortage. We can't recruit, especially this year. There's not enough supply teachers either. Huge shortage of science teachers in secondary schools.

Those photos of 'safe schools' were hilarious.

@noblegiraffe

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.

How much did Kirsty Gallagher get paid last September to say schools are safe. Was there a set fee?

Schools are also pretty much the only workplace you aren't allowed to say that's where you caught covid.

MN is dreadful,for this, but so are lots of the media.

If you suggest you most likely caught covid in a hospital ward whilst working as a healthcare professional - yes, that's probably true.

If you suggest you most likely caught covid in a supermarket whilst working there as a shop assistant - yes, that's probably true.

If you suggest you most likely caught covid in a school classroom whilst working there - no, unlikely, you probably caught in the staff room (which was closed), or from your colleague (who you SD from, and rarely in the same room) or from your supermarket shop (when you get home delivery) or from your partner (who works from home most of the time, but does occasionally see clients from a distance, wearing a mask and often behind a screen). You simply not allowed to suggest it might be from one of the children you second 5 or 6 hours with in a crowded classroom, when you know covid is going round some of the parents and that a child in the class tested positive a few days later - it's just coincidence 🤷‍♀️

I don't think it's the government because I see this for example in The Guardian too. It is very annoying though.

I thought teacher training applicants were up on previous years, due to other industries who are on their knees not recruiting, and lack of other attractive options (postgrad experience from your childhood bedroom anyone?)

Hospital news coming out of Israel, who are world leaders for vaccinated people, are now finding some interesting percentages:

‘Due to the high immunization rate among the adult population, the composition of those infected and critically ill has changed in recent weeks. Children and adolescents aged 0 to 19 constitute more than 43 percent of all new patients, and those aged 20 to 39 constitute 35 percent of them.’

Lemons1571, maybe applicants have gone up, but recruiting is a nightmare. Maybe the applicants give up half way through. I only see the admin side of it, I work in a large secondary school in a popular area of London, and we can't get science teachers (or Maths teachers) for love nor money.