If I hadn’t spent the last 15 years working in media and public relations, I too would interpret the media silence around covid and new covid research/science as a sign that there is nothing to worry about. But I have. So here are some things you should know🧵
More than 95% of all stories you read in the mass media start as a press release. I don't know if this is a dirty little secret of the media industry or widely known by people, but it's how it goes. Which is like this:
A press release gets written for a client, it gets sent out to a big list of journalists, the PR agent (or in-house person) phones around the journalists in whatever sector they’re working in to try and get them to look at the story, offering interviews with the key players
Sometimes the PR agent might not send out a release en-masse but “sell in” the story as an exclusive to just one outlet. When you read that something is an exclusive, it usually doesn't mean a journalist cracked a story, it means the PR agent gave it only to them
The bigger the PR agency, the more likely you are to get a journalist to bite on your story. And this is a major problem. Because the bigger the agency = the more expensive the agency
So the biggest, richest clients hire the biggest, richest agencies with the most brand recognition and media connections, and these agencies are responded to most favourably by editors and reporters
And the bigger the agency, the bigger the budget you have to entertain journalists, go out for lunches/dinners, which enables the fostering of human connections that mean the journalist will respond favourably to your next press release/call pitching a client story
In addition to this, many PR agency bosses, especially of the largest agencies, will be members of the same private members clubs as the media bosses, with a lot of informal “work” done during these evenings
So how does this relate to covid? Covid doesn’t have a PR agency, and most studies come out of niche research labs or universities that have very limited or non-existent PR teams/agency support
And even when it’s coming out of a big university, the media teams at these unis are spread thin and often don’t see the humdrum science research as something to prioritise when it comes to media. It doesn't raise money, it's not sexy etc
Unless it’s a breakthrough piece of research, you’re unlikely to see it. It’s no surprise that when you do see a covid story it’s been published in a high-profile medical journal like The Lancet that has a bigger media team and more connected PR officers
You might be thinking: but what are you going on about, covid was all over the news for 18 months. Yes. But this is because there was no denying we were in a genuine global emergency/event. Governments led and media had to respond. It was, for a time, the only game in town
All the media outlets put their journalists onto covid, looking for sector-specific angles. The health reporter, the science reporter, the travel reporter, the food reporter, obviously the politics team, were all covid all the time
For those first 12-18 months the whole ecosystem flipped. Journalists will have been asking agencies for their stories around covid, and agencies will have been crafting every story into something covid-appropriate for all their clients
But over time, and especially as the vaccines began to be rolled out, the messaging from political offices and the media shifted explicitly and implicitly - the emergency is over and it’s time to get back to normal. It would have gone something like this:
The press officers for No.10, the White House or any head of state office would have talked editors about the need to move away from the emergency framing to transition back to normal. Country leaders themselves would have talked to newspaper owners to encourage this shift
And these political offices and leaders will have been making this push to media off the back of their own conversations with 'business' about the need to get back to normal
The push to return to a pre-pandemic mode will have been coordinated between the highest political and media offices, with business CEOs well in the mix, if not the originating node, of this push
This is the broad context for the media silence on covid. It’s over, and we the media helped make it over. And if something’s over, how can it be news?
The dynamic has shifted a little for the climate crisis, with some coverage (in recognition of an ongoing event) and the omissions are subtler, primarily around failing to platform research and experts who advocate solutions that do not conform to an economic growth agenda
The latest batch of stories was a good example: article after article telling us we’re going to breach 1.5C but without any decent critique of why this is happening and how we can stop it, beyond “reduce emissions”
The current mass media ecosystem exists largely to propagate specific agendas that tend to consolidate business-as-usual, rather than to inform people of threats to their health, livelihoods or futures
Which is why twitter is still somewhat useful as a means to push against a media culture weighted heavily in favour of the biggest, richest businesses and PR agencies
(To read my full article on this please go via the link in my bio because the beef between musk and substack means substack links on tweets and threads get throttled)
Here's an example: the Guardian's transport correspondent in 2021 witing about Michael O'Leary of Ryanair slamming protections as bad for his business. No counter point about the necessity for protections, just a subtle consent manufacturing article for back to normal
This has gone a bit woah so I want to say: of course there are good journalists out there and publications willing to challenge the status quo e.g. @BylineTimes. But in general the mass media is no ally to those seeking a just, equitable, decent (even liveable) future
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Scientists have found what they call 'the master regulator' of the immune system in the human brain. If it holds up it's a stunning discovery that could transform treatments for autoimmune disease and post-viral illnesses. What did they find, and how?🧵
They found that neurons in a part of the brain known as the caudal Nucleus of the Solitary Tract (cNST) fire, or misfire, to produce a balanced or dysregulated immune and inflammatory response. They found, in their own words, “a new brain circuit.”
A circuit that helps determines how your body responds to infection. A response that determines if you live, die, or develop a post-viral or autoimmune condition. Let’s delve in to the detail.
This is big. Scientists have identified the cells in the brainstem that sense immune cues from the body and act as "master regulators" of the body’s inflammatory response. "The discovery is akin to a black-swan event. It's a whole layer of biology we haven’t even anticipated”
"Finding ways to control this newly discovered body–brain network would offer an approach to fixing broken immune responses in various conditions such as autoimmune diseases and even long COVID, Jin says." h/t @oldfshndanne nature.com/articles/d4158…
In true shitty science publishing style the full paper costs $25 and is too new to be available via the alternative means through which I can usually access them, but hopefully soon. Or maybe someone else has it?
Chimps in Uganda have started eating bat faeces after their regular food source, the rafia palm, was wiped out by tobacco farming. When scientists tested the bat guano they detected 27 novel viruses, including a previously unknown coronavirus science.org/content/articl…
Despite what you might have heard, global demand for tobacco is rising, not falling, leading to more area being cleared for tobacco farming. By 2030 tobacco sales will top a record $1trn prnewswire.com/news-releases/…
British American Tobacco contracts 18,000 farmers in Uganda to grow tobacco. In 2015 leaked documents revealed the company had deployed various tactics to stall Uganda's first tobacco control legislation tobaccotactics.org/article/uganda…
Apparently dairy farms in Texas have been refusing access to avian flu H5N1 researchers because it 'might damage their business.' Capitalism can't stop pandemics. Oh, and the researchers think that it's probably airborne
Also seems researchers have been doing good vibes only strategy on H5N1, spit-balling the idea that cows are probably 'sort of immune' to H5N1 disease and transmission
Dystopian pandemic movie script: A new virus emerges, the ruling dynasty disappears it with propaganda, infections continue, a collective amnesia takes hold, sufferers are forced to illegally source antivirals, others crowdfund their own deaths as the disease debilitates them
It would be a really harrowing watch. Even doctors and experts would push propaganda about the virus, many would deny that it can even cause a disease. Sufferers would visit doctors and be told they have anxiety
The one reliable way to prevent infections would be denounced as radical propaganda designed to hold everyone in a state of fear. Doctors would joyously rip off their masks, revelling in their freedom from tyranny