Clearly, this is in response to social media chat that it may prevent or mitigate the effects of COVID. It may also be in response to a warning issued by Medsafe yesterday that, "Ivermectin is NOT APPROVED to prevent or treat COVID-19, which means that Medsafe has not assessed the safety and efficacy for this use. Inappropriate use of ivermectin can be dangerous."
The Stuff article sounds plausible and good on them for
putting the "truth" out there if that's their intention. But here's
the problem. Not many people trust Stuff anymore, and that goes for mainstream
media generally. That mistrust may be caused by the propensity of some
politicians (domestic and overseas) to claim the media is biased or promotes
fake news, but the media must also shoulder some responsibility
Stuff, in particular, has gone woke and taken advocacy
positions consistent with a view promoted by central Government. As a result,
growing numbers no longer believe it is impartial and do not trust it as a
reliable source of information, at least not as much as they did even a few
years ago.
The political environment is also different. We now have a
government with an authoritarian attitude, intent on reversing many things that
have to date been taken for granted. By its own admission it is introducing
fundamental social change, and alarmingly has extended its influence into the
private sector media, like Stuff who receives financial assistance from the
Government to "sustain" itself. People will therefore logically be
suspicious that the quid-pro-quo is toeing the Government's line. Whether that
is true or not is a secondary issue - the point is there is now a reason for
people to come to that view.
Is it therefore no surprise that many readers are turning
away from the mainstream media and onto alternative platforms like Youtube or FaceBook.
Surely the best way Stuff could convince people that what it publishes can be relied upon is for its writers and illustrators/cartoonists to return to the principles on which good journalism is based: Accuracy, Fairness and Balance. Then more people may believe what they say.
Frank Newman, a political commentator and investment analyst, is a former local body councillor.
6 comments:
Well said. I actually said the same thing to someone this morning, that when reading anything in the MSM now comes with a grain of cynicism as knowing how deep the PIJF cuts and the requirements thereof, he MSM have for all intense and purposes become the Main State Media.
I personally only now get the paper for the letters to the editor and even they seem to now only be published if they hold the Governmnet narrative.
It is no wonder politicians and MSM are considered untrustworthy by citizens, when day after day they treat us as infantile fools.
This actually seems like a well reasoned and researched article, which is very much the exception for Stuff. The conclusions are balanced and it quotes from many different studies both positive and negative. It recommends caution but does not rule out the drug as perhaps having some efficacy against Covid, subject to further controlled trials.
There appear to still be some real Stuff journos out there who can put together an investigative story but resist the urge to skew it in favour of their own personal opinions.
Agreed, DeeM. Yes it does look balanced and good on them for going into the detail. Would be good to have a couple of medical experts slug it out in a for and against debate.
As I recall from my bygone days as a farmer there was a withholding period after the use of Ivermectin on livestock for both meat and milk. That would indicate to me that there must be something in it that probably didn’t agree with humans so I sure as hell wouldn’t think of taking it as a substitute for a vaccination for Covid.
My truth meter also indicates a withholding level for anything in the mainstream media. Particularly Stuff and The Herald, the latter seeming to have no problem printing ongoing racist rants by Debbie Ngarewa-Packer but not picking up on Greens decolonisation officer Lourdes Vano (15 on the party list)(kiwiblog)or the ever evolving antidemocratic antics of the numpties presently in Government.
You are unfortunately going down a well-trodden track here that everyone who laments our current media walks. Stuff appears to have mainly young opinion writers.I suspect they are not well paid and that they are directed from the top what to write. Every now and then they throw in an article to make them appear unbiased. The only way forward for different opinions to be aired is for us to have another media outlet as have Australia with Sky news and the US with Fox news.If this doesn't happen then nothing will change. Blogs like this one, no matter how excellent would not be visited unfortunately by many. If you had been given $50,000,000 or $100,000,000 you might feel obliged to deliver the required content.
It is easy to get the impression that there are many people in this country who don't actually want a way out of this crisis except for a total shutting of the border. Journalists in other articles convey a desire that the vaccine programmes in countries like the UK will fail. Like Frank, I am now automatically sceptical of anything I read in Stuff.
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