🧵GUTTER JOURNALISM STRIKES AGAIN🦠💥

There was once a time, in the now dark & distant past, when journalists would craft their stories with balance and panache. Using credible sources to add “weight” to an article.

I’m about to tell you what today’s crop of “journalists” do👇🏻
But first, a bit of background. Yesterday @beverleyturner debated @DrNighatArif on @thismorning over the proposed rollout of Covid-19 vaccines to 12-year-old children.

Safe to say, it was a lively affair. But it’s important to note it was a more balanced interview than usual.
Both guests had opportunity to speak, and the presenters remained largely impartial throughout.

Dr Arif was representing an organisation called @projecthalo which is part of the United Nations “Verified” initiative. It is regularly promoted by big tech companies like YouTube.
And it is “supported” (funded) by organisations like philanthropist body Luminate which also funds organisations like Full Fact and Greenpeace UK.

Beverley was representing herself as a broadcaster, journalist, & mum-of-three.

Dr Arif started off by stating vaccination raised…
…3 big questions:
• is it necessary?
• is it safe?
• is it effective?

She then, curiously, went on to talk about other school immunisation programmes such as rotavirus. I say curious because whilst that may be true, other vaccines have little to do with the Covid-19 vaccine.
She then listed another three aims:

• is it safe & effective for the child? • is it going to be effective for other people around you to bring down the infection rate?
• and is it going to be a public health safety measure that we need to add in?

“When all of those three…
“…criteria are included in the middle of a pandemic — we do it with lots of vaccines already — vaccinating children makes sense,” she said.

She went on to make the argument about safeguarding children from “severe complications” & rising cases leading to further lockdowns.

👇🏻
What was again curious was the lack of scientific evidence to answer the questions she herself laid out.

1. Is it safe & effective? Well we simply don’t know, is the honest answer, as the vaccines remain in clinical trials until May 2023 (Pfizer below)👇🏻
clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04…
2. Is it effective for others? Well, we know that the vaccines don’t stop transmission.

“There's no evidence that any of the current Covid-19 vaccines can completely stop people from being infected,” say the BBC. Lowers the chance, yes, but not stops.
bbc.com/future/article…
3. is it going to be a public health safety measure that we need to add in? It’s unclear what Dr Arif means by this as we have never before locked healthy people in isolation or denied young people education for fear of spreading a respiratory virus. Cases also don’t equal sick…
…people which, disappointingly, the doctor doesn’t clarify to the watching audience.

What was also fascinating were the myriad of mistakes Dr Arif made during the 15-minute segment. Here she is misspeaking & stating that the risks from the vaccine “far outweigh” the benefits.
She later corrected herself.

And here she appeared not to know how many children she has, stating 3 and then shortly afterwards 6.

Of course, it could just be nerves. But the quote from Mark Twain did feel pertinent: “If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
Beverley made most of the points I have addressed above and delivered a compelling argument, leaving host Rochelle Humes clearly conflicted at the end of the debate over whether to vaccinate her own children.

She wasn’t the only one Beverley left conflicted as you can see here👇🏻
Flicking through the #ThisMorning hashtag & it was clear most people thought Beverley had come out on top. Yet if you Googled her name in the hours afterwards, it told a very different story.

“Uproar”, “irresponsible row”, “divides viewers” & “faces backlash” screamed headlines.
And now we reach my central point. Journalists used to have pride in their work and find credible sources to give a balanced view.

Now many simply search Twitter for a comment(s) that fits a pre-determined narrative. Let me be clear: you can find any opinion you want on Twitter.
I can find literally any view imaginable just by taking a few minutes to use the search function.

Here we have @rosemhill’s attempt in the Mirror. The whole basis of her “backlash” article is around one comment with 4 retweets and 126 ‘likes’ and another with 24 ‘likes’.
Should we be surprised at the negative slant towards Beverley Turner?

Well no, these political activists tell us exactly what side of the fence they are sitting on as they type up their copy. “Journalists,” don’t make me laugh.
“Sparking uproar” says @CharlyMcIntyre, who repeatedly spells Beverley’s name wrong throughout the copy.

The central basis of her article is from a bot with 5 followers and 1 ‘like’ on its tweet. Another comment used had the significant total of 0 RTs and 5 ‘likes’.
Birmingham Live’s @jamesdrodger declared ITV had “come under fire” & was “in hot water” over Beverley. Of course, no justification is ever given to support this meaningless newspaper phrase.

One comment he quotes has not a single interaction. Was it his second account? Who knows
And here is @rebeccalderwood of Entertainment Daily. Her article uses comments with a single ‘like’, 8 ‘likes’, and 10 ‘likes’ and not a single RT between them.

I’ve deliberately not linked to any of these articles, instead using screenshots, as that is exactly what they want.
Your average citizen who comes across these stories (with sensationalised headlines) on Google will get a wholly distorted picture of the debate as it happened. As long as you click the link, boosting their web traffic and therefore ad revenue in the process, they don’t care.
It’s unadulterated gutter journalism. And it’s lazy at best, wholly sinister at worst. They deliberately cherry-pick the comments to suit the narrative they or their editor wants, & completely ignore the reality & the hundreds/thousands of people supporting Beverley, shown below.
This is one of the reasons so many of the public have no idea of the “other” side of these issues and debates. They are conditioned through cynically drafted propaganda which, as I’ve just demonstrated, falls apart at the first sign of scrutiny.

This distortion must stop!

ENDS

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More from @James_Townsend9

26 Aug
🧵THE PANDEMIC IMPACT ON CHILDREN🦠

The Children’s Society has published its tenth annual study on the wellbeing of young people, The Good Childhood Report 2021.

It paints a worrying picture of how some of our kids have fared during the pandemic.

More👇🏻
childrenssociety.org.uk/good-childhood
The headlines include:

• roughly a quarter of a million (250k) children did not cope well with changes during the pandemic

• 42% of children are worried about new illnesses/pandemics

• 24% of children are ‘quite’ or ‘very’ worried about their mental health (vs 17% in 2019)
• 61% of parents reported the ‘slight’ or ‘very’ negative impact homeschooling had on family life

• 43% of parents said there had been a ‘slight’ or ‘very’ negative impact on children’s happiness in the household

• the pandemic ‘might have exacerbated existing inequalities’
Read 7 tweets
17 Aug
🧵WHY AREN’T WE TALKING ABOUT CARE HOMES?🦠

Today four brave care professionals, including a husband and wife, lift the lid on the appalling conditions facing residents and staff in England’s care homes, exacerbated by the looming mandatory vaccination deadline.

Read more👇🏻
Through their courageous & very personal testimonies, I can reveal an alleged litany of failings inc:

• care homes at breaking point & residents left to wet themselves in isolation

• staff sobbing in corridors & regularly working illegal shift patterns due to under resourcing
• “endless pressure” and “bullying” from central HR teams to coerce employees into having the vaccine

• mental health insinuations against those choosing not to be vaccinated

• minimum wage carers pressurised into work when previously sick, who now face losing their jobs.
Read 37 tweets
25 Jul
🧵PROTESTS: ARE WE GETTING IT RIGHT?🦠

I’m probably going to get pelters in some quarters for this but I feel it needs to be said.

I’ve often defended the protest organisers, however, I feel yesterday they got it badly wrong in London. Damagingly so.
I’m going to tell you why👇🏻
When I attended the march back in April, the beauty was the sheer diversity of people in attendance (as I wrote about at the time).

June and July was the same. You don’t attract a diverse crowd like that by focusing on niche topics — you do it by targeting key central themes.
Themes like lockdown, like vaccine passports, and like bodily autonomy/mandatory vaccinations. Issues that have a solid foundation from which to argue our point of view; issues which, with some gentle persuasion, members of the public at large could/should get energised about.
Read 18 tweets
15 Jul
🧵SHOCKING BBC AND NHS PROPAGANDA UNCOVERED🦠💥

You are not going to believe this one (or maybe you will), but bear with me. I had to triple check my figures on this just to reassure myself it was true.

And what’s more, this is likely to be happening every single day.
More👇🏻 Image
Last night the esteemed @BBCHughPym, BBC health editor since March 2014, ran a seemingly alarming story about the Covid-19 situation in the North East, as you can see below.

With interviews from a respiratory consultant, medical director, elected city mayor, and local resident. Image
It featured as a segment on the 6 o’clock news, 10 o’clock news, @BBCNEandCumbria, as well as being one of the top stories online (see screenshot).

I have no way of calculating the audience reach but we can safely assume it was into the millions, nationwide and regionally. Image
Read 22 tweets
14 Jul
🧵BOUGHT AND PAID FOR MEDIA🦠

Yesterday evening, in the House of Commons, Members of Parliament were instructed to vote on some of the most important draft legislation in decades:

Health & Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021👇🏻
British politicians were asked to support proposals that will effectively abandon long-held principles in this country of voluntary and informed consent, as outlined here in black and white on the NHS’ website.

A huge decision with wide-ranging moral and social ramifications.
Not since the nineteenth century, 1898 to be precise, has the UK entertained the idea of compulsory vaccination, recognising the moral, religious, & scientific objections of doing so.

Yet this amended legislation would compel *anyone* entering a care home setting to be jabbed.
Read 17 tweets
6 Jul
🧵JOURNALISM IS DEAD🦠

Yesterday we all saw why.

For 16 months the government & its scientific advisors have avoided any kind of scrutiny. The Downing Street press conference sham is evidence; where “journalists” ask narrative-driven, pre-prepared & sanctioned questions👇🏻
When have you ever heard them ask about the China lab leak? About natural immunity? About the risks of the vaccines? About the flawed PCR tests? About the cost/benefit analysis of lockdowns? About the impartiality of SAGE? About the planned lies and fear? Never, is the answer.
Those questions are only ever asked by the public on forums like Twitter- never by journalists - & even then Big Tech censor many of these important questions.

The result has been the rise of the Covid cult (💙), of covidians, a movement steeped in ideology rather than science.
Read 24 tweets

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