Just starting work tonight on death in long-term and residential care and I wanted to start with a quick thread. There's a lot of blame to go around but I want to specifically focus on the mainstream media ...
As media has concentrated, there are way fewer eyes on these facilities. The reports, inquiries and news about the abuses within become little more than one-day affairs (s/o to @KateDubinski who, if I'm not wrong, covered the Wettlaufer inquiry intensely for CBC London)
Forget the fact that it's harder and harder for someone who, say, has two PSW parents to become a journalist and help influence coverage ... that's a big problem and doesn't only touch this crisis ... but what's been just as bad has been the total shutout of left-wing voices.
Anyone who is active on the left, whether through groups who advocate for public healthcare or through unions, know about the issues in LTC. Campaigns from @SEIUHealthCan and the @CFNU/ it's members have made this clear ...
A few years ago, @UniforTheUnion had a campaign that challenged people to get themselves ready in 8 seconds -- basically what PSWs are expected to do with patients. How much attention do these campaigns get from the increasingly narrowed media landscape?
It's very little. There is an active campaign within the mainstream press to avoid talking about issues that question our society's brutal status quo. I know a little about this. And journalists do a terrible job acknowledging this ...
Pretending instead that things are neutral, fair and balanced etc. etc. etc. And then things constrict even further, such that you can count the number of columnists in Canada who would cover LTC regularly on a single hand.
So yeah, when art-trader and rich guy Evan Solomon is all shocked about today's horrific report, it's like ... my guy ... your literal job (aside from trading in art) is to know that this stuff is happening
Every journalist who expresses their surprise at today's news demonstrates that they aren't there to tell average people The News. They exist to manufacture reality to make us question everything we know about existence in Canada. Only once it's laid bare do they say "omg!"
(and you can see how Fake News exploits this so very easily, especially among the population whose parents are all currently dying in these facilities)
Will journalism survive this pandemic? Something related to journalism will -- and the legacy media outlets either have to reform the hell out of themselves, die or simply be honest about whose bidding they really do.
(Remember when some Unifor members who work at the Globe were so mad that their union had a political opinion in the last election but I don't recall a single one expressing outrage/solidarity related to the 8 Seconds campaign that the union ran...aside)
Now, onto my work (which has also been fully ignored by these people lol)

-30-
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