Commentary
When the failures of legacy journalism during the pandemic period are analysed, as may eventually happen, the concentration will probably be on the failure to expose relevant facts. While obviously important, that is not the main lesson that should be taken out of the debacle. If disinterested journalism is to have any future—and at the moment it is all but extinct—then there has to be something more than just the recording of facts, or the eliciting of different points of view.
So great has been the intensity of the propaganda and the censorship of alleged “misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information” that it is no longer possible for journalists to rely on a degree of reasonableness in the audience. The civic ground has been poisoned, including by journalists themselves. It will remain unusable for a long time….