
The UK government is paying newspapers for positive COVID-19 coverage - cirrus-clouds
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/the-government-is-paying-the-sun-and-daily-mail-for-positive-coverage-of-its-coronavirus-response/28/05/
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cirrus-clouds
Here is the content paid by the government on Guardian's website:

[https://www.theguardian.com/all-in-all-
together](https://www.theguardian.com/all-in-all-together)

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

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seesawtron
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?

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lgats
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."

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

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codeddesign
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..

