A discussion about the press.

How do you feel about the way the press has handled C19?
Is it a continuation down the truly horrifically over-intrusive road that has been peddled for years by an establishment that prefers sensationalism over substance?
Are the stories that are being published factually questionable, or published before due process can occur, due to their emotive nature?
Was the Panic Buying stirred by the press's sentiment and phraseology?
Does repeat utilisation of 'According to' when relating to accessible stats add a subtext of mistrust?
Or
Has the press expose the idiosyncrasies and inaccuracies of government policy in this pandemic?
Do people want/ need to be able to personify/personalise the sheer number of deaths to rationalise them?
Does that sort of reporting mean people are more likely to listen to the severity of the consequences of selfish actions?

Discuss.
To include all branches of the mainstream media- and anything else you feel fits the brief of 'the press'/ 4th Estate

This should be good. When you say press do you mean national print newspapers?

having worked in news media up until a year ago, the mainstream news media has been on a catch up strategy since the advent of social media, and the sensationalism is driven by the need for ad revenue which has fallen away and decimated the industry.
Quite often stories are just pushed out online as placeholders and continually re-edited throughout the day...if it's online, advertising can be attached and actual fact checking often involves "I saw a tweet, I saw a Fakebook post".
Most "journalists" don't even bother with a byline anymore as they know that they are just regurgitating unsubstantiated here say, and it's not what they trained for.
In my last few years, journalists became copy/pasters, taking media communications from sources and just slapping a stockshot with it to produce the required amount of content.
Some of the garbage coming out of "respected" news sources on Twitter at the moment is just embarrasing.

I mean all of it. I've found the reporting universally distasteful at times.
Eg the story of the pregnant lady, who was essentially identified by virtue of timing and locating the birth.

But thats beside the point. I'm interested in how other people perceive it.

Some starters for ten:

• Newspapers are businesses trying to make money. They will print what their audience wants to hear and run an operating model that makes money if possible. That may not be consistent with purely conceived notions of the purpose of a free press.
  
• Panic buying is more likely fed by Twitter and Facebook and word of mouth. But when the press report on it they feed the vicious cycle.
  
• Few (probably no) journalists understand what they are reporting on here. They are probably trying their best to put out a story, but over simplifying. Bad news sells, good news sells, 'its a bit more complicated than that, and frankly I don't have grasp on it' doesn't sell.
  
• it is not newspapers job to publicise government policy without question. It is their job to scrutinise and challenge it. That scrutiny probably contributed to the policy change from herd immunity to shutdown over the last week on some level (again an over simplification).
  
• all of the above are massive generalizations - each source of news media is different. They are all a bit shit and a bit good in differing ways.
  
• There was never a golden age. The fourth estate has always been a mess.
  

I mean, you are going to find it particuly shit because it is your area of expertise. Whenever I read news stories on my industry they are almost always wrong.

The OP asks too many questions for an intelligible discussion

@HarmanMogul
They're not really questions though, are they?^
They're more highlighted discussion points that came to my head in the midd

@t-v
I would state very clearly again- C19 is well outside my area of expertise, but the policy and public view of it directly affects my work on a daily basis.
Media representation has always been particularly interesting for me given my mum is an ex-war correspondent, who now is an academic in Media/Politics.

^(again- I'm not really asking a question there, Or am I?)
[again- no]