BBC News and the normlisation of death
Deadening death
Having wasted months during which the government
could have built up supplies of testing kits and PPE and could have
organised tracing teams, it has instead indulged in a chaotic and
reactive game of catchup. The mainstream media (MSM), with the
notable exception of Channel 4 News, have been unwilling to hold the
government to account. Instead, we endure the unedifying spectacle of
the daily briefing, which serves only to demonstrate how woeful our
journalists are. Obvious questions, particularly relating to PPE and
testing are not asked, or not as brutally as needed, or when they are
asked, the question is usually surrounded by less difficult
questions, which of course get answered instead. My point cuts deeper
than just the obvious ineptitude. The output of the MSM has become so
bland that we fail to register the tragedy. The numbers of dead have
become a grisly contest with other nations to see who has the best
curve. By using military metaphors and other diversions, the
government, in concert with the MSM, are succeeding in drawing
attention away from mistakes and incompetence that have cost lives. A
recent thread by Elaine Doyle [1] explains how delays in taking
action have caused our death toll to be twice that of Ireland's,
in spite of both nations being comparable. The failings were all but inevitable in a
government assembled exclusively to secure Brexit and nothing else.
My contention is that the MSM are not only failing
to hold the government to account, but they are complicit in
producing an emotionless narrative, which serves to protect the
government from more rigorous criticism. This is not some accidental
feature. To illustrate how news is being constructed to support the
government, and simultaneously lessen the impact human tragedy has on
its popularity, I have analysed one episode of BBC News. I have paid
particular attention to how the deaths of two NHS workers were
handled; how deaths were handled in general; how government
shortcomings were ignored; and how the government line was promoted.
BBC1 News analysis (Friday 3 April, 10pm)
The most striking thing about the programme was
how little of it even addressed the human tragedy 3,605 deaths represented. It opened with
the daily briefing, led by Matt Hancock. The totals were breezed over
very quickly during the introduction, in which Hancock featured several
times. There was a brief mention of two NHS nurses, the implication
being that their stories would be examined in more detail later on.
As we shall see, this did not happen. Instead, we had the core
message of the briefing, that we should stay at home and save lives,
reiterated twice here and once straight after by Boris Johnson (he
was then only displaying mild symptoms).
The briefing was used as a springboard to present
an upbeat feature on the Excel centre, opened by Prince Charles, via
video-link. More shots of Matt Hancock were overlaid with the
voice-over: "getting things done is the message the government
is trying to convey". For anyone expecting something on testing
kit shortages, it came next, very briefly: a watery, non-judgemental
aside in which Hancock appeared yet again, this time with a 5-point
plan, which was not interrogated even though what he said amounted to
nothing more than a vague statement of intent. It scarcely touched on
the question of testing.
So far, only the views of the government or
royalty had been represented. The deaths of the two nurses was in the
end compressed into a two-sentence link into a statement by Hancock
warning of the need to comply with government advice. It is worth
examining in more detail.
Following shortly after was a snippet of news involving 350 000
items of PPE - fed in without any analysis of whether this would meet
our needs. In the absence of any context the number was meaningless,
yet it was emphasised by a shot of equipment being unloaded from a
cargo plane. Much of the broadcast was in this form; snatches of
something that passed too quickly to be scrutinised, leaving nothing
more than a decontextualised afterglow. The snatches were either
supportive of the government line or deliberately anodyne. Quite
often they were both. For example, there was a longish section
explaining the difference between antigen and antibody testing. It
told us nothing about the shortages in either case, but foregrounded
science as a key ally in the "struggle" against
coronavirus.
Apart from anything else, this type of clip seemed
designed to consume minutes broadcast time by saying almost nothing
of importance. A story about a virtual graduation ceremony also
belonged to this time-wasting category as did one on farmers calling
for paths to be closed. The language used in the item on the two kinds of testing was
particularly slippery. It was introduced as follows: "The
government is under relentless pressure over why more testing isn't
happening. So why does that matter in the struggle against
coronavirus, and what do the tests involve?" Suddenly, from a
fleeting acknowledgement of criticism, we are diverted into a
pointless and patronising discussion of testing itself.
Next up was an extended item about Johnson. It
included, extraordinarily, a mild criticism of the government. The
reporter acknowledged how many of the government team were out of
action. She then said, "It has made the task much harder. And I
think it has shown this week, when you need people with a grasp of
the detail, they simply weren't there". That was it. Nothing
about lines of command or how strategy was being managed, just a glib
remark about detail. She went on to repeat yet again the government
message on staying at home.
What came next was a near to blatant attempt to undermine one of the main criticisms being levelled at the government. It was a
video diary of an intensive care consultant preparing to begin work
on the wards. Essentially, what it showed was her donning pristine
PPE. Remember, we had already seen items being unloaded from a cargo
plane? There was no mention of the shortage of PPE or the contraversy surrounding it.
We see her go into the ward and then return,
several hours later, clearly exhausted. Nothing was shown of her
dealing with critically ill patients. When she returned she spoke
honestly about the problem of bringing in relatives. She did not
overtly say she meant relatives coming in to see their loved ones
before they died. Her video had clearly been edited to avoid doing
this. The horrifying scenes evident in the coverage of Italian
hospitals were conspicuously absent. Later on though, as we shall
see, scenes of desperately ill people would be shown: in a report
from India.
Having seen Prince Charles at the top of the
programme, Nicholas Witchell was now brought on to explain what the
Queen was likely to say in her speech, the following Sunday. He
concluded in sombre tones that its purpose was "to rally the
nation's resolve at this moment of great national difficulty".
It was followed by another reminder of the government rules.
As we moved into the second half of the broadcast,
government advice had been reiterated no less than five times. Two
members of the Royal family had appeared or been mentioned, Hancock
had been referenced at least four times and Johnson twice.
We were then taken to India, to witness how their
health service was struggling. The report showed dirty corridors and
overcrowded wards. A healthcare worker described anonymously the lack
of preparation for the virus and the desperate shortage of
ventilators. The reason, supported by a graph, was put down to health
care spending. We quickly see, as the graph flashes up, that the UK
is much better funded. Apart from India, we are also shown to be
spending more money on healthcare than Spain, Italy and China. The
only country above us on the graph was the US. The graph blips on the
screen quicker than you can take in the obvious issues with what it
is measuring and to ask why no European countries with higher
spending had been included? We are told that Indian doctors have to
see four times as many patients as UK doctors and that we have a much
greater supply of ventilators. If we are compared with a country doing worse than us, naturally we appear to be doing better.
Following on directly from the India report our
performance against other countries was confirmed by a walk-through
of the death tolls in Italy, Spain and France, countries that had
worse death tolls (at that time) than we did. France was given a
special mention because they were including deaths within care homes
in their statistics, almost as if they had been cheating before.
The rest of the broadcast followed the same
pattern. It ignored any criticism of the government.
Conclusion
Conclusion
What was immediately
clear from paying close attention to the content and structure was
that government advice was the spine of the broadcast. It was
repeated over and over again. Even though staying at home is clearly
good advice, when repeated enough times it becomes didactic. The
programme was teaching us how to behave according to the wishes of
the government. We become the passive consumers who must listen but
not not question. News becomes propaganda. Within this context any criticism of the government
was clearly not allowable. The questions of testing and PPE were
skilfully sidestepped and even turned into victories for the
government.
Most tellingly though was the treatment of deaths within the UK, and in particular the deaths of the two nurses. It was as if there had been no deaths. None were shown. No stories were told. The nurses were quite shockingly incorporated into a link into Hancock at the podium, effectively making them disappear. The approach of the programme to the human tragedy was to disown it; to pretend it was only happening in places like India, that had spent less on their healthcare. It was intentionally devoid of any content that might stir emotions. The only thing that mattered was that we listen to the government and takes its advice. It was calculated to make death irrelevant, a trend we see in the MSM more generally. A quite stunning victory in making us not care.
Most tellingly though was the treatment of deaths within the UK, and in particular the deaths of the two nurses. It was as if there had been no deaths. None were shown. No stories were told. The nurses were quite shockingly incorporated into a link into Hancock at the podium, effectively making them disappear. The approach of the programme to the human tragedy was to disown it; to pretend it was only happening in places like India, that had spent less on their healthcare. It was intentionally devoid of any content that might stir emotions. The only thing that mattered was that we listen to the government and takes its advice. It was calculated to make death irrelevant, a trend we see in the MSM more generally. A quite stunning victory in making us not care.
References
[1]
https://twitter.com/laineydoyle/status/1249127908876128259?s=20
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