Norman Swan apologising for behaving exactly like you expect Norman Swan to behave.
https://twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1592656644659363840
After acknowledging that he helped screw up Australia's vaccine rollout by causing Astra Zeneca hesitancy, and then performing posthumous COVID diagnoses on Kimberley Kitching and Shane Warne, a wise head might decide to take an introspective sabbatical to get some perspective.
His brain was broken before the pandemic, but @normanswan's three years of single-minded obsession on one specific pathogen has set fire to the wreckage. He's the Virus Whisperer, Australia's answer to Rudy Guiliani, "A noun, a verb, and COVID-19."
He has a vast platform, and an obligation to take it seriously and use it responsibly. He has not. ABC pays him a salary because he draws-in frightened eyeballs, they're complicit in his ethical and intellectual failures.
None of this is new. Right from the very beginning of the pandemic @normanswan was fear-mongering. How did this one turn out, Norman? Did you learn any lessons from it? "Primary school maths," right?
https://twitter.com/normanswan/status/1241198962465320960
Last year he said NSW was "complacent," while it was in the middle of a four month lockdown, the Army deployed to Penrith, and police helicopters with megaphones hectoring brown people to move on from parks. Then he said we were "guinea pigs" for relying on vaccines.
There are plenty of worse commentators than Norman Swan, but they're marginal kooks almost nobody pays attention to. His platform reaches millions, and he uses it to promote the likes of Raina MacIntyre.
Ethically compromised, intellectually stunted, factually errant panic-mongering nonsense. The only reason to pay attention to him is to criticize. Don't take advice from Norman Swan. /end
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