The UK government is paying newspapers for positive COVID-19 coverage | Hacker News Reader

The UK government is paying newspapers for positive COVID-19 coverage

thelondoneconomic.com

54 pointscirrus-clouds12 comments

Here is the content paid by the government on Guardian's website:

https://www.theguardian.com/all-in-all-together

Wow, that is straight up fraud. "Paid for by All In, All Together" otherwise known as the UK govenrment.

Can someone explain what's so odd or fraudulent about it?

1. Govt spending on ads increased in February as the article says. But isn't it expected given that govt sources have to reach wider audience in times of crisis and hence has to increase its spending doing that. We can of course challenge the specific amount spent and whether its justified but there was no analysis done on that aspect of it. The article merely reports the increase in spending.

2. The article hints that there is an odd correlation of ads by the govt being of "positive response" towards the crisis. Althought that is debatable whether it is indeed true or not, assuming that it is true, I am not sure whether the response where the govt makes ads that say "we are failing each day and have no idea how to respond to this crisis" are a better alternative. These days the media stories are often one sided, either positive or negative so a neutral ground of emotion is hard to see. So I am thinking how else this should have been done.

3. Is it propaganda? Yes. Is it a lie? That would mean the media outlets are lying and we should stop reading them. Is it half of the information? Probably. That's why we have to rely on multiple news sources to get the complete picture. The question is what is the public going to do with this information?

It now reads "This advertiser content was paid for by the UK government. All in, all together is a government-backed initiative tasked with informing the UK about the Covid-19 pandemic."

I see a blank after “Paid for by:” now.

When the government spends money on advertising I expect it to be labelled as government spending on advertising, not hidden behind a shell organisation.

did the article say it's hidden? i didn't see that part.

If you actually go to the guardian site it only listed the front organisation, not the fact it was a government funded campaign.

Hmm as a Guardian reader I can't say I'm entirely comfortable with this. I guess it would be clearly identified as paid content if I came across it on the Guardian website - maybe I should pay the voluntary subscription so they don't have to dine with the devil in quite this way!

On another point, neither can I pretend to be entirely comfortable with the appropriation of the rainbow as a symbol of our solidarity - there are sections of society for whom it represents a rather longer struggle.

So you're partly comfortable with this?

English understatement! Its a turn of phrase that is actually rather stronger than it might first appear.

Indeed, the subsequent 'I can't pretend that...' is a form of words much stronger and more direct than the 'I can't say that...'

I think it’s funny that people have an issue with this considering the site makes an incredible amount of money stoking fear and hate into people while purposefully looking for controversy anywhere it can be found.

Of the 100 articles on the homepage of The Guardian, try to find 5 that are not fear, hate, or controversy. Good luck..

No one seems to have a problem with paid hate..

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