Full spin ahead: Biased media covers the PM’s coronavirus update
Can you spin the coronavirus to make a story favourable to your own political agenda? As James Ball (@jamesrbuk) puts it: ‘Half of twitter’s idea of a good question to Number 10: “How many more people will you murder for the profit of your donors, Boris Johnson.” Other half: “Do you have a message for a grateful nation, oh heroic prime minister?”’
Most of the papers lead on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans for the next stage of the UK’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, ones he outlined in his first televised statement since recovering from Covid-19. The Times listens to the latest briefing and says the PM will reveal a “limited” set of changes to the lockdown “within days”. Plans include allowing shops selling “not-essential” items to reopen, it says, although schools will stay closed until June.
The Daily Mirror says that after more than four weeks of being indoors, people have been given some hope over a return to normality. “Not much longer”, is the paper’s front page headline. The i headline says there’s “hope in sight”. The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg writes: “Boris Johnson’s statement at the lectern this morning was a request to the public to be patient, to keep going, to hold firm through the frustrations of living life mainly behind closed doors for a while longer.
Or as the Telegraph puts it:
Thankfully you can hear Johnson not saying ‘it’s time to fire up the engines’ without the Daily Telegraph’s filter:
Such are the facts.
Posted: 28th, April 2020 | In: News, Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
