If we were to believe the mainstream media – and who would, especially Australia’s taxpayer-funded leftist propaganda network – so-called “anti-vaxxers” are wall-to-wall wicked righties. Apparently, the only time the right take time out from eating babies is to gibber “far-right conspiracy theories” about the Covid vaccine.
But just because the ABC believes it, doesn’t make it so.
ABC viewers love the confirmation bias they get when Media Watch tells them vaccine hesitancy is being spread by right-wing “fake news” sources.
Is it, though?
Yet Aunty needs only to look at its own radio current affairs programs since March to see how the national broadcaster has helped drive vaccine hesitancy[…]
As this column pointed out way back on March 22, the government was already worried then about the ABC’s coverage of rare blood clots in Europe after AstraZeneca vaccination: “Government ministers and health bureaucrats told this column they worry the relentless focus of ABC bulletins may have overheated concerns (about Astra) among the general public. There’s a thirst among left-wing demographics for endless stories about Coalition incompetence, but editors need to balance that with an eye on the national interest – and in Australia that is definitely a successful vaccination program.”
Even ABC health editor Norman Swan, to be fair a supporter of Astra who has said many times he was happy to have that vaccine, admitted to The Sydney Morning Herald in a piece by Michael Koziol on May 23, “Fair cop. I probably did cause some vaccine hesitancy.”
Consider, too, the general profile of an actual anti-vaxxer (i.e. those who blanket oppose vaccines, rather than hold doubts about an experimental vaccine being slowly forced on us whether we want it or not).
One of the most prominent anti-vaxxers is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Somehow, I doubt lil’ Bobby Jr votes Republican. Another is Joseph Mercola, whose views on everything from GMOs to fad diets would seem more at home with the Greens than One Nation. Rizza Islam of the Nation of Islam is another big-time anti-vaxxer: NoI leader Louis Farrakhan is a long-time associate of leading Democrats like Keith Ellison. I don’t reckon you’ll see Rizza holding Kwanzaa with the Birchers any time soon.
In fact, your typical anti-vaxxer is most likely to be a liberal, middle-class, college educated white female who’s into natural health. Call me crazy, but I’d say her sympathies lie Green-ward rather than to deep-blue conservative. I’m betting she watches the ABC rather than Sky News.
The ABC might offer the threadbare excuse of just chasing clicks.
After all, the ABC and its audience are resolutely anti-Morrison. Hence, its Covid vaccine coverage has been driven more by opportunistic bashing of the government at any cost.
ATAGI (the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation) last week finally reversed its own hesitancy on Astra for under 60s in the face of Sydney’s Covid reality.
Many journalists tried to imply ATAGI was backing down to pressure from the Prime Minister who first urged people under 60 to talk to their GP about an AstraZeneca vaccination back on June 28.
Labor-leaning journalists accused Morrison of “ignoring the health advice”[…]Imagine how the ABC or Guardian would have treated the first Astra-linked clotting death had Morrison overruled ATAGI. He would have been blamed personally.
In fact, the ABC quietly admits its – and the media’s general – complicity.
ABC online on April 26 published an excellent report on the media’s role in inadvertently contributing to vaccine hesitancy.
Australian Catholic University and Notre Dame University academic Xavier Symons wrote: “The powerful influence … of mainstream media has been dramatically illustrated in the reporting of … blood clots … related to AstraZeneca … Many outlets (have) failed to provide adequate context for the … isolated cases of blood clots.” Much reporting of one particular death did not even mention the woman had “severe chronic disease issues”.
The Australian
Which, oddly enough, we might say in spades about reporting of Covid deaths.
The vast majority of Covid deaths are the very old and already very sick: people with “severe chronic disease issues”. The vast majority of healthy people under 70 have little to nothing to fear from Covid (even the elderly are most likely to cope just fine).
Yet, where we are finger-wagged that the, yes, very small apparent risk of catastrophic vaccine effects are nothing to worry about, the also-very-small (if, yes, much higher than vaccine) risk of Covid is hysterically shrieked at us, day and night.
Perhaps the media and the government might want to have a Bex and a good lie-down and consider that their obvious, hysterical double standard is what’s really driving suspicion and “vaccine hesitancy”.
Hysteria and fear-mongering – either way – might generate clicks, but it never bodes well for good policy.
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