The value of any news organisation is in its ability to present information objectively. Real quality is achieved when fearless writers present a wide range of opinions.
In the current pandemic I find no commentators independent enough to question the ‘media hype’ around the Covid saga.
Where is the writer who points to plummeting contagion and fatality figures in no lockdown, no mask wearing, no closed schools or businesses Sweden and asks, how/why’?
Isn’t there anyone around the table who sees that of 150 countries listed on official statistics sites only 23 nations have Covid fatalities higher than 200 per million of population?
Isn’t there one commentator tempted to highlight, investigate and question the media prolonged societal panic in light of these figures? They certainly feel free to be less than sympathetic to those who question mask wearing, which is fine, up to a point, but hardly balanced.
Which of them is willing to underline the reality that so far in 2020 – 9.5 million worldwide have died of heart disease, 5.76 million of stroke, 3.32 million of lung disease, 2.94 of flu/pneumonia and all the way past one million-plus for suicide, HIV, various cancers until eventually we get to
Covid at 0,766,332 worldwide deaths as of August 15.
We cannot of course underestimate the danger of Covid for many but we can surely overestimate it to the detriment of economic and educational futures, family stability, mental health and the knock-on negative effects of closed medical clinics and dental surgeries.
Wouldn’t it be ideal if some quality media sources were at least attempting to defuse the generalised panic and anxiety by using the above mentioned cold, tranquilising statistical facts?
Not opinion or spin, simple facts.
Every news organisation should have at least one devil’s advocate brave enough to publicly question the unfortunate modern journalistic tendency to group think.
It can only add depth and a sense of genuine balance to readers who after all are paying hard cash to hear what should in an ideal world be a real variety of opinions from talented writers.
B J TURBETT
Strabane, Co Tyrone
Political policing of bonfires
The Fire Service of Northern Ireland last month indicated that some bonfires built by loyalists for the Twelfth celebrations breached its safety standards, including at Tigers Bay and Alexandra Park. Nevertheless the PSNI did nothing to dismantle these bonfires, instead concentrating its
attentions on those on the nationalist side of the community who were opposed to it.
I am not advocating bonfires but there had been a tradition fostered by the Provisional movement to commemorate the anniversary of internment by bonfires in nationalist areas, a practice that it discontinued following the Good Friday Agreement. Indeed we have witnessed a well-known republican out helping to extinguish a fire set in the Clonard area commemorating this event. We have also witnessed the PSNI moving in to dismantle bonfires in the lower Falls area that had been set to commemorate this event.
The PSNI said that it had done so at the request of the landowner in both occasions.
I would be interested to know if the landowner was in fact Belfast City Council and, if so, whether it was also the landowner of sites used by loyalists for bonfires to celebrate the Twelfth.
If that is the case, I would like to know why there is differential treatment by both Belfast City Council and the PSNI towards bonfires depending on what side of the community they are organised. Is this political policing and is it political policing on behalf of Sinn Fein?
SEAN O’FIACH
Belfast BT11
Listeners shouldn’t be exposed to distasteful gibberish
It was with dismay that I listened to BBC Evening Extra’s ‘celebration’ of the best parts of Fawlty Towers, marking its 45th anniversary (September 21, 36 minutes in).
Among the clips aired, was a compendium of the actor David Kelly’s stereotypical attempts at playing the stage ‘Oirishman’, that being, an inept and stupid cowboy builder – (Series 1 episode 2, September 26 1975)
What confuses me is that clips from the infamous ‘Germans’ episode were not aired, nor those that made a fool out of Manuel – “it’s okay, he’s from Barcelona”.
Thankfully, we seemed to have moved beyond such condescending comedy and the aforementioned clips were deemed to be politically incorrect, yet not the clips that wallowed in an anti-Irish stereotype.
Why should modern listeners still be exposed to this distasteful gibberish, particularly when such nonsense was supposed to have been confined to, what it seems, is a rather selective dustbin of history.
That episode was not funny in 1975, and is still offensive today. Hindsight is a great strength, but it seemed that it was sadly missing on Monday.
BARRY O’FLYNN
Dunmurry, Co Antrim
Northern Ireland is neither nation nor country
If you listen carefully to news and government reports Northern Ireland has started to be mentioned as a nation or country. It is neither nor ever has been. The list of countries provided by the International Organisation for Standardisation does not recognise Northern Ireland as a country. The United Nations does not recognise Northern Ireland as a country. Unionists may wish it to be a country and pretend it is but the fact is that it has never been a sovereign country and given the demographic changes coming it will never be one. Wishing a country into existence lies in Peter Pan land.
ANTHONY STEELE
Belfast BT14
