The manufacturing of fear

Be afraid. Be very afraid. That is how the media approached Covid. The media have a responsibility to inform us. But they also have a responsibility to be balanced. That didn't happen when Covid first emerged in China. And it didn't happen when it hit the UK. Instead, we were treated to contextless coverage of daily death tolls. Add this to the ghoulish headlines and the scary graphs, and the media had left us adrift in a monoculture of fear. Some of the people I interviewed told me about the considerable negative effect this coverage had on their perception of the world, not to mention their mental wellbeing. The media should serve the public. But over the past year, they have been terrorising us.

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