Covid contrarians often complain about being censored, but in reality groups like HART are platformed and even actively supported by print, radio and TV journalists.
This continued even after #hartleaks showed them to be a bunch of cranks and conspiracy theorists.
🧵1: print
When HART launched, their media coordinator Jemma Moran already had a list of "trusted journos" to target. She calls @AllisonPearson their "most supportive contact", and offers her and the @Telegraph first sight of their press release and an article by HART member Ellen Townsend.
Pearson promptly writes an article accusing the media of "remorseless scaremongering" and calling HART's launch "cheering". She charitably describes them as a "group of eminent doctors, scientists, economists and psychologists", and a "thoughtful bunch". Which is far from true!
A few days later Telegraph associate editor @CamillaTominey publishes an article quoting HART's Ellen Townsend, including a misleading, probably false claim that there hadn't been "a single death of a previously healthy child from Covid-19".
Townsend repeats this in the Express.
The Telegraph published an even more blatantly false claim a couple of weeks later, when HART's John Lee told @AllisonPearson and @LiamHalligan's Planet Normal podcast that covid has "very little effect" on people under 60 unless they're "ill with other conditions".
Then in May @AllisonPearson had senior HART and UsForThem member Ros Jones on Planet Normal, saying "politicians are jumping the gun when it comes to children and vaccines".
We now know Jones was coordinating an anti-vax campaign to stop children getting vaccinated at the time!
The @Telegraph's education editor @camillahmturner went even further, claiming there was a "backlash" against vaccinating children.
This was based solely on a HART letter that made false claims about vaccine safety, the risk of covid to children, and the UK having herd immunity.
We also now know articles by the @Telegraph's @camillahmturner about headteacher David Perks refusing to enforce mask mandates were setup by @usforthemuk, who spent the whole pandemic arguing against any kind of safety measures in schools. Ros says Turner was "brilliant for UfT".
Meanwhile @Telegraph cartoonist Bob Moran joined HART and even created content for them. No surprise when his sister-in-law is .. HART media coordinator Jemma Moran.
@bobscartoons became increasingly extreme, and was eventually fired after saying a doctor deserved to be abused!
Other @Telegraph writers aren't as popular with HART. Liz Evans initially says "@sarahknapton is out on a limb and the only one worth approaching".
Later she hoped @gordonrayner could "turn the narrative around", suggesting the paper's output was bought with government ad money.
HART's real ire is aimed at @PaulNuki though. Members claim he has a "clear agenda" and is paid for by Bill Gates, describing his work as "risible", "appalling propaganda".
These are the people @AllisonPearson, @gordonrayner, @camillahmturner and others have been platforming.
Another early HART supporter was @thelucyjohnston of the Sunday Express. She even setup a meeting between MPs and HART members Ellen Townsend and Anthony Brookes, plus HART friends Sunetra Gupta, Carl Heneghan and Robert Dingwall. Using recycled HART material as "bulletpoints".
HART members frequently talk about @thelucyjohnston being an ally who's "tearing her hair out at censorship and control of the narrative", and fighting her editor to get stories about HART and their dubious views published.
Perhaps because of her "wary" editor, @thelucyjohnston wanted a story from HART to justify covering the group's launch. But she was already in contact with several members, including purveyor of dodgy graphs Joel Smalley and anti-vax homeopath Anna Rayner.
Then in March, Ros Jones says @thelucyjohnston is "as horrified as we are" about vaccinating children. In a very dodgy move, she wants them to organise a letter "signed by a dozen or more doctors", purely so she can use it as an excuse to get an anti-vax article past her editor!
HART promptly set about trying to find enough members who fit the bill to sign the letter.
Conspiracy theorist Liz Evans asks if her own group, the even more outlandish UKMFA, can join in, but unsurprisingly @thelucyjohnston's editor "rolls his eyes" at the mere mention of them.
It's not clear if this scam actually resulted in an article @thelucyjohnston could get past her editor. But she repeatedly quoted HART members and allies making wild claims in contrarian articles throughout the year, and even got UKMFA quotes past her eye rolling editor.
Apparently @thelucyjohnston was also actively promoting HART to her contacts.
Jemma Moran talks about her sending HART content to everyone from Robert Dingwall (still on the JCVI at the time!) to Lord Sumption (who promptly wrote about the group .. in rival paper The Telegraph).
More recently @thelucyjohnston has published a series of wildly misleading stories, distastefully using tragic deaths amongst child abuse victims and care home residents to push her anti-lockdown narrative.
Meanwhile the @DailyMailUK's @DavidRoseUK was apparently "very interested in hydroxychloroquin", and wild tales about a trial supposedly using fatal doses to discredit the drug.
In a bizarre game of pass the parcel, HART seem to have referred him to the UKMFA via BIRD. 🙄
The @DailyMailUK also published several articles by members John Lee and Ellen Townsend in early 2021.
These made false claims about false positives, and (ironically, given HART's later anti-vax stance) called for lockdown to be ended early because "the vaccines are working". 🤔
More worryingly, @bmj_latest senior editor Peter Doshi was in contact with HART, asking for information on "harmful bioactive roles played by the spike protein" used in covid vaccines.
A few weeks later he used the BMJ to call on the FDA to delay vaccine approvals on this basis!
All of which makes you wonder why HART are so paranoid that there's a "concerted campaign against sceptics" paid for by Bill Gates.
He's clearly not getting his money's worth!
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