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Interesting to see people confidently asserting that live, unedited broadcasts of politicians speaking are somehow intrinsically more honest than edited news coverage. This ignores some fairly obvious truths. Politicians say only what they want people to hear. The full truth is >
> often just as important and the vital role of journalism when reporting politicians includes filling in for lies of omission, highlighting alternative viewpoints and sharing uncomfortable facts. The idea that journalists are the enemy is sheer Trumpism, and deeply dangerous.
In terms of the specific issue at hand, the First Minister's COVID broadcasts, have people *seriously* forgotten how we found out the truth about the Nike conference, the care homes scandal and the misrepresentation of statistics by the FM? It wasn't from what she chose to say!
Another obvious example - the FM for weeks cited daily "no deaths" stats on COVID but never cited the weekly summaries from NRS which showed an average of a death a day. That's a lie of omission. That's another reason the "media filter" is a *good* thing.
Happy to acknowledge that more recently she has been citing the NRS figures occasionally, but on many occasions she did not put the daily figures into this context.
