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During his long career in journalism our Editor Phil Parry has always tried to de-bunk nonsensical conspiracy theories, but now with the pandemic largely over in the UK, absurd notions about it are again coming to the fore.
In the past he has described how he was helped to break into the South Wales Echo office car when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early career as a journalist, the importance of experience in the job, and making clear that the ‘calls’ to emergency services as well as court cases are central to any media operation.
He has also explored how poorly paid most journalism is when trainee reporters had to live in squalid flats, the vital role of expenses, and about one of his most important stories on the now-scrapped 53 year-old BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW) TV Current Affairs series, Week In Week Out (WIWO), which won an award even after it was axed, long after his career really took off.
Phil has explained too how crucial it is actually to speak to people, the virtue of speed as well as accuracy, why knowledge of ‘history’ is vital, how certain material was removed from TV Current Affairs programmes when secret cameras had to be used, and some of those he has interviewed.
After disclosing why investigative journalism is needed now more than ever although others have different opinions, and how information from trusted sources is crucial at this time of crisis, here he looks at the dangers posed today by fake news and conspiracy theories.
The appalling Herman Görring was wrong on many things, but on one he was right.
How people can be manipulated.
He declared: “All you have to do is tell (the people) they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country”.
Sadly the end (largely) of the Covid-19 pandemic in developed countries, has again emphasised this dictum, because absurd conspiracy theories about the virus have proliferated – as there are ridiculous attempts to explain why the country was ‘exposed to danger’.
A key ingredient of the conspiracy theories was the rapid worldwide transmission of this nonsense by the internet.
A poll by Gallup of 28 countries on four continents found that in all of them, at least 16 per cent (and as many as 58 per cent) of people thought Covid-19 was being deliberately spread.
A clip of a film called ‘Plandemic’, which claimed that a shadowy elite started the outbreak for profit, had been seen eight million times within a week of it being uploaded.
Its star, Judy Mikovits, topped Amazon’s bestseller list.
A study published in Nature found that, although pro-vaccine Facebook (FB) users outnumbered anti-vaccine ones, the anti-vaxxers were better at forging links with non-aligned groups like school parents’ associations, so their numbers grew faster.
Among Americans, exposure to social media is associated with a greater likelihood of believing that the US Government created the virus, or that officials exaggerated its seriousness.
The myths about Covid-19 included the preposterous notion that the disease could be cured by drinking methanol, which led to more than 700 deaths in Iran, and that it was spread by 5G transmitters, which convinced arsonists in the UK to carry out more than 90 attacks on phone towers.
But these ludicrous ideas found favour in official circles – especially when Donald Trump was President of the USA.
In spite of the fact that he had received abundant warnings, Mr Trump regularly asserted in his Coronavirus Task Force press briefings that “nobody could have known a thing like this could happen”.
From March 1 to April 30 2020, he made 11 tweets about unproven therapies and mentioned these therapies 65 times in White House briefings, especially touting the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine which went against all of the official advice from health experts.
Studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine can cause conduction disturbances and fatal arrhythmias, the supply of hydroxychloroquine may decrease for approved conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, and chloroquine products might be toxic if ingested in large quantities.
A death has already occurred due to the ingestion of chloroquine.
Yet still these risible conspiracy theories about Covid-19 have persisted, causing deaths world wide.
But those who peddle such lies have now turned to how it all started in the first place.
Another phrase which might be apposite today is from Abraham Lincoln who said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time”.
The memories of Phil’s astonishing decades-long award-winning career in journalism (during which he always attempted to portray the truth) as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
