The above is a New Zealand Herald website heading.
It’s extraordinary given it pertains to their own columnist and is totally inaccurate.
In fact the complaint quite rightly was not upheld as the subsequent article made clear. This is yet another typical newspaper sub-editor cockup in writing utterly misleading headings to stories, not through malice but instead slop.
The complainant protested at Hosking saying “many (get that – “many”) of those who died (in Italy and elsewhere) of coronavirus could be attributed to underlying health problems”. That is a cold hard fact.
Contrary to the Herald heading the Broadcasting Standards Authority found against the complainant’s infantile main charge of discrimination and denigration.
The Authority did find against Hosking’s sweeping underlying health assertion on the correct grounds that (my words) given the number of deaths, he couldn’t be 100% certain in his statement.
That’s true but I challenge the Authority to quote a single case in Italy or here or anywhere where coronavirus has killed an otherwise healthy individual. None exist.
In the broad thrust of his assertion Mike Hosking was in fact totally correct.
The Authority did make the point that some virus deaths would have lopped a few years off some lives. On the other hand we now know the biggest victim category were elderly dementia patients. As anyone knows who’s experienced that with a relative or a friend, which is most of us over 60, death is always viewed as a blessing.
What fascinates me most by this matter is the un-named complainant. What a snivelling bleak miserable sod he/she is. I’d give long odds that the real underlying objection was not to what Hosking said but instead to Hosking himself. He’s committed the ultimate sin of success and as I wrote yesterday, the most powerful human emotion on my observation is envy. This matter is a perfect example.
22 Comments
In the UK, the media is openly split by transparent political affiliations.
For example, The Guardian is left wing, The Independent and Financial Times are centrist, and the Times and the Telegraph are right wing. The US media model is similarly split in this fashion.
I like their approach, because they do not pretend to be neutral. Their biases are open and transparent.
In NZ, there are some commentators that are open about their affiliations – Hosking is one.
However, most media commentators in NZ pretend to neutral, when they are not.
Personally, I think all political commentators should publish who they vote for, at the bottom of their article.
This would stop hacks holding themselves out as neutral, dispassionate bystanders.
We would then see that the NZ media is dominated by socialists.
For the record – I will vote ACT in the coming election.
Bob, I disagree.
It was written with malice.
The Labour luvvies continue their odious slant on anything and anyone who questions Cindy and her sycophants.
They control the papers in this country and will continue to do so.
Thankfully, we have a number of right thinking people in radio to provide the facts.
Which they hate.
An interesting little known fact about Italy is that, early on, scientists with an outcomes orientation, presumably with open minds unencumbered by what became the dominant narrative, went to the town with Italy’s first death. They conducted the first mass population testing and found asymptomatic people [unknown at the time, WHO said asymptomatic transmission was extremely rare] and treated/isolated cases. They found they only needed to conduct two all-population testing cycles, as I recall 10 days apart, and eliminated the virus.
I think there may be a good reason why that is a little known “fact “.
You’ve nailed it. The narrative is so strong that anything contrary to it is countered with “that’s not a fact”, and an absence of curiosity or interest whether, in fact, it is.
That information, and other important early studies that revealed high rates of asymptomatic infection, was published by the Wall Street Journal on 23 March. It was vomit-inducing that months later, in NZ’s solemn press briefings on Covid-19, the charlatan “experts” were still downplaying asymptomatic infection and being dismissive about getting antibodies testing done to get some idea where we might stand. Concerned ordinary citizens keeping themselves informed can do a better job on a whole host of issues, than the featherbedded officials who are paid to BE “experts”.
What we know now (and the experts should know) is that antibodies diminish their presence after the initial surge, so antibodies tests can be “too late”. On the other hand, fragments of the virus that has already been destroyed months ago, can trigger “positive” infection results here and now. The test that determines “destroyed” viruses is horrendously expensive but as with the early studies of population cohorts you mention, the few expensive trials that have been done, should become guidance for the world’s “pandemic experts”.
The “experts” closed-mindedness on everything at every stage, all the good news that should have calmed everyone down, has gone beyond incompetence, to reeking of criminal conspiracy.
The narrative beggars belief, that not one single case of Covid-19 infection here in NZ came from China in the early stages when it went to Milan and Iran. Apparently we only got it eventually via everywhere else! Come ON. Tens of thousands of people arrived at Auckland airport from China every month but “NZ’s remoteness saved us”? If that remoteness from China could save us, why not remoteness from the even further away places we admit the virus did reach here from?
Apparently there was a bit more than usual of the sniffles and sore throats in January and February, but we all know what the GP tells us: “it’s probably a virus, I’ll give you an antibiotic just to be safe, but just ride it out”. When did we actually start testing for the virus and determining who was the carrier of it into NZ? We just didn’t even notice the ex-China wave, that’s all. And we never had the experts with the right initiative or even the access to funded medical technology that would have told us a lot more, when it would have been timely. Leave that stuff to the real first world nations, that also don’t have single carriageway “main highways” spanning the length of their country.
Indeed, an awful lot was known early, yet appeared as if new 3-4 months later in the NZ press and responded to by the paid experts as if it was new, like some macabre game. The 23 March WSJ piece you mention is chilling for how long key facts were known yet not incorporated into plans until many months later. The work in the Italian village example I gave, which also found asymptomatic cases, started I think late Feb/early March, noted here: https://medium.com/illumination/open-letters-to-prime-ministers-ardern-and-morrison-from-a-nobody-444d80b71c05. (Also the Diamond Princess and USS Theodore Roosevelt).
Likewise testing. Even tho’ response was slow (despite the rhetoric, endlessly parroted), apparently never seriously critiqued even by a simple black-hat exercise, and neither systematic nor effective (until, arguably, post-Hipkins, but by then was set in concrete), and we had done zero serious testing (not all-pop., mass, or proper surveillance testing, but the media lauded it nonetheless – truly bizarre), the obvious thing even then (with months of knowledge already) was at least do some serious surveillance and antibody testing right at the start of first lockdown. It would have told us heaps.
Instead, we waited till 4 weeks into lockdown, when we knew there’d be almost no chance of finding anything, especially if we did no antibody testing, and only did some non-scientific non-random testing labeled ‘surveillance’. And the media parroted ‘no community transmission’, again. Just like they (and, depressingly, scientists) had earlier been on full narrative repeat cycles before lockdown kumbaya chanting ‘no community transmission’ (and the disingenuous ‘no evidence of community transmission’), and then when 3 community transmission cases popped up, despite studiously not testing for them, doing everything possible not to find such cases, so, evidently there were by then very many more, which likely freaked us into lockdown, even while the public were oblivious, like this idiot noted in a Haiku:
https://medium.com/illumination/stockpiling-92ab8e4573c6
And so we all went into bubbles, for “safety”:
https://medium.com/illumination/bubble-safety-a7e70ee0a2bb
Funny enough, saw the media angst on news tonight about the case with officials “scratching their heads” about someone who tested positive a week after 14 days in quarantine. They interviewed an expert referencing new research showing a small percentage long tail. No mention that all that data was known back in March/April. The reporters may not have known, but if so, only for a lack of research. And the scientist, who must have been aware (and officials, likewise, must have known the truth – one hopes at least) all playing some bizarro pretendo game stringing along gullible reporters delivering nonsense chatter. Or maybe they were all in on the devilishly clever japes played on the public, oh, what jolly fun.
Maybe we’ll see some serious reporting on the science of masks to combat Covid sometime, next year, perhaps? I’ve not yet seen any NZ reporting on the science of masks beyond the infantile conflating of “common sense” with “therefore it must be scientific” and the uncritical parroting of whatever they’re told by officials. Not even testing why that’s done a complete flip, simply accepting at face value the patently flimsy covering message. Of course there is serious research about masks, and an absence of evidence in a critical area, and, irony of ironies, officials pointed to it when denying mask efficacy in the early days, now of course keeping quiet about it as they push the opposite story, although the science has been there (and not) all along. I’m no anti-masker, perfectly happy to wear one, or not (and bought some from 100+ years Petone-based HillsHats.co.nz) but it would be kinda cool to see some evidence-based policymaking, reporting, you know, that old fashioned stuff.
The hollowing out of journalism must be pretty dire when supposedly the most important issue of the day is treated with lack of care, lack of time to do a decent job, or contemptuous disregard for facts, evidence, or that most elusive concept of all, truth. (To be fair, most journos I know are decent folk, so the lack of time to do a good job, with ever-increasing pressures to pump out click bait, seems a reasonable if sad hypothesis. And makes them an increasingly easy hostage to such jolly japes as officials and corporate PR types choose to play).
One can only hope the unnamed plaintiff wore the cost of the case including any costs Hosking incurred.
The final ruling is also flawed as was the lockdown ruling which in effect was a court, of our land and for the people, justifying an illegal act. Thank the stars this is being challenged again.
Hosking is correct as you say. I doubt we will hear but the two youngish NZ brothers who sadly died weeks apart no doubt also had underlying health issues. Happy to stand corrected but I doubt we will hear because it upsets the narrative.
Envy: Notice how no-one felt envious of John Key, even though he was super successful and definitively rich? It’s curious – what’s the difference? I think the difference is that he didn’t “wear” his success. He didn’t take the meaning of his professional success too seriously. He spoke down to no-one, and authentically so.
People who envy the rich have issues, that much is true. But it takes two to tango. What people don’t like (usually) is not the other guys success, but that subtle yet transparent attitude of superiority that often comes with it. My point is, many rich people should look at themselves as much as the ‘envy’ of others.
-To be clear, I do not mean to put you personally in that ‘arrogant’ rich guy category, Bob. I just want to make the point that it’s not *just* envy that induces public rejection of the rich.
Mike hoskings is a legend.true conviction like winston
Tens of thousands of otherwise healthy people have died of covid 19.
http://protomag.com/articles/why-do-young-healthy-people-die-covid-19
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12327627
Thank you Steve Frost. Not only kills young people, but also is absolutely debilitating for some.
Agree with John J Harrison.
It is deliberate.Designed to depress and frustrate.
The average kiwi reader is so intellectually challenged,that the (seemingly) unintentional mistake,entirely passes them by.
Those who have the intelligence,and perseverance to read the article through,simply groan,and wonder what they did to be saddled with this degree of dishonesty.
And that’s putting it mildly.
As you well know,Sir Bob, the days of Brian Edwards,or Lindsey Perigo,are in the distant past.
The brave new world of Jacinda,Marama et al,are our future.
Hard times lie ahead.
The brave new world of Jacinda,Marama,et al IS our future.
(apols for grammatical error)
If they are our future then it is bleak and probably time to move across the ditch
It’s actually more disturbing than that. It’s like the early signs of dementia in the media.
Wait till the concepts of truth and integrity disappear entirely driven by the click bait style of information.
This era will be seen as the point that we missed our chance to embed some rules around distributing BS.
Sorry Bob, but you’re wrong. Deaths in young healthy people are rare but they definitely do occur. Sadly, some are health workers.
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/04/13/covid-young-people
If being “100% certain” of correctness is now a requirement, how about the “88,000 deaths of we don’t lock down:” and similar?
“There is no problem with supply of Flu vaccine:”
“Facemasks are dangerous”
I’m an ex News Junkie, but now hardly watch TV news, (and gave up reading newspapers years ago), something I do miss but if I want fiction there are better writers than the current ‘journalists’.
The sub editor highly likely had a gutsful of hoskings..live and let die.. covid philosophy.
Incidentally there must be hundreds of thousands of kiwis with underlying health conditions going by the amount of patients at big city multiple doctors surgery’s and 1 doctor country town practitioners.
They’re both chockablock and its common to wait half hour beyond
Your appointment time.
Maybe shockjocks are cyborgs and don’t need medical treatment. 😀
Dear Bob,
I disagree. The headline was made in malice. For the very reason you outline in your article, envy. There’s nought more envious than a leftist ‘journalist’.
When I laid a complaint with the Broadcasting Standards Authority, I had to ask the Broadcasting Minister, Kris Faafoi, if he would get them to deal with it from the viewpoint of Broadcasting Standards, and not looking after their mates. I kid you not!