An Example of MSM Covid-19 Fake News - Radio New Zealand

The New Zealand media has had an unfortunate Covid-19. Examples of unbalanced reporting are legion, and many future Master & PhD degrees will be awarded, academic papers and books written, and conferences held for studies of how societies managed 'the panic of 2020'. There is rich material in New Zealand for media studies (fair and balanced), political science (propaganda and lurching government authoritarianism), public relations (propaganda), sociology (media and crowd behaviour) etc. The list seems endless. While the coming economic and financial crisis will be remembered as part of the panic, here I want to look of an example of the worst type of reporting we've seen. 

This reporting misled, misreported, and just omitted (censored) information which if covered effectively should have resulted in a very different reaction. There's no doubt the government has milked the covid-fear narrative for all they could, and the media has acted like cheerleaders. I was reminded of fans at a rock concert the few times I suffered through those early press conferences with the PM and the Director-General of Health.

Radio New Zealand report of new 'outbreak' of four people - August 13

State owned advertising free broadcaster
Experts Michael Baker and Shaun Hendy share concerns Auckland outbreak could be 'generations' deep 

This is at the beginning of the second lockdown in Auckland. By 13 August we had all the information needed to never consider lockdown again (see here, here, and here). We knew it wasn't deadly for most people. We knew elimination was neither possible nor necessary. We knew the costs and harm of lock down.

And still this article was a cheerleader for fear

The implication from the headline is people will suffer for generations. What the story actually says is "... experts say it's likely the four cases confirmed in a family on Tuesday are a few generations into an outbreak." then "... an outbreak usually went through a few generations of transmission before someone became sick enough to present with symptoms." 

Big deal and big difference. 

Then the article gabbled on about things that don't matter. Where the 'outbreak' (four people!) came from, contact tracing, a "Physicist and disease modeller ... saying there could be several layers to the outbreak ... If [the virus] has been passed from ... and passed through ... could have passed ...". WTF!

Who cares! 

"If family was the tertiary contact of a border case ..." - I feel like I'm reading an article about terrorism. 

"... the big worry was a super spreading event in the transmission chain ... could send numbers skyrocketing" 

Ahhhhhhhhhh!

Time to get serious.

" ... super spreading events ... suddenly cause a large outbreak that's very hard to manage," Professor Baker said. Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield ... would be a worry if it was the case. "It's possible it's been in the community for some weeks, but we have nothing to suggest it's a long chain of transmission."

What the hell are they talking about. I haven't read such nonsense for ages. This is in mid-August. Not March! 

"The great thing is we have found it and that we are getting on to finding out who else has it. Remember the problem here is the virus..."

No! No! No! The virus is not a problem for most people. We can protect the vulnerable. How much evidence do you people need!

" ... and we want to find everyone who has been infected and support them and stop this chain of transmission." - yawn.

As for the physicist-modeller. If the usefulness of most of the covid19 modelling presented so far is anything to go by, he's just speculating.

This is possibly the worst example of misreporting I've yet seen in New Zealand on this issue given it was written when so much information was available. And we've had some crackers!