Member-only story
Mind Control
Why we urgently need to reconsider our approach to “news”
On the morning of 28th January 2021, British people woke to find every newspaper and online news site pretending that the European Union was trying to “steal” supplies of “British” SARS-COV2 vaccine. While this absurd pseudo-nationalist post-Brexit sensationalism was eminently predictable by anyone with an IQ larger than their hat size, it is nevertheless extremely effective and thus extremely toxic.
Ironically, the truth — as is so often the case these days — is the opposite of what is presented in the news media. In reality it was the British who, a couple of weeks ago, were begging the EU to safeguard deliveries of the Pfizer vaccine, which is manufactured at Pfizer’s Puurs site in Belgium. The EU, true to its principles, confirmed that vaccines bought in advance by the UK government would indeed be delivered to the UK as intended. At no time has the EU sought to propose that vaccines intended for the UK be redirected to EU member states instead, despite how appallingly the British have behaved throughout the Brexit process.
But who in the UK is going to make the slightest effort to look at the publicly available records that flatly contradict the media claims when there’s a nice juice headline to believe instead? And because all the UK news organizations are pushing the…
