Sherlock Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
Inspector Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.
Sherlock Holmes: That was the curious incident.
The Adventure of Silver Blaze (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
One of the main themes of these "Propaganda Files" is that, concerning the identification of propaganda, what is NOT said is at least as important as what is said. Failing to mention key facts has been a ubiquitous and consistent media ploy this last year. In this Part Two, I want to point out a handful of American media behaviors that are quite startling by omission.
1) Not only are illnesses and deaths caused by vaccines not examined or discussed in any meaningful way, they're not even mentioned. The silence is extraordinary. One would think that during a historic pandemic with experimental vaccines, literally every American news outlet would demand and publish the latest vaccine illness/death breakdowns on a weekly basis.
Instead, there is no reporting whatsoever. Vaccine-caused illnesses and deaths simply don't get mentioned, whether it's CNN, MSNBC, Newsweek, USA Today, The New York Times, and so on. One would expect state-by-state comparisons, demographic tallies, and details about the extent and nature of the adverse effects. We get nothing. It is stunning, this ubiquity of nothing.
Even if one grants that vaccines have saved tens of thousands of lives (to this point), as I do, there is no excuse for this massive silent black hole regarding adverse vaccine effects and deaths. What rationales can responsible journalists possibly provide for NOT discussing these elements of the pandemic?
2) Usually, I am annoyed at cable news wasting my time with anecdotal personal profiles and stories. Now, in the middle of a historic pandemic, they have pulled the plug on vaccine hardship stories. There are literally none.
Early in the pandemic, I was scheduled for an mRNA vaccine. Two Tennessee women were hospitalized at Vanderbilt. They were suffering sudden post-vaccine paralysis due to auto-immune responses. I learned of this via newspapers and, since my family has a really nasty auto-immune history, I decided to delay my vaccination. Since then, I have not read a newspaper story about severe post-vaccine auto-immune responses. Am I to believe those two women were the only ones thus affected?
3) When all of the negative vaccine stories are quashed, they must go somewhere. They go to forums, podcasts, and sometimes down conspiratorial rabbit holes. The fact that mainstream media refuses to engage and feature vaccine victims forces these victims underground. This is institutional white washing and institutional bullying of the worst kind. These people are pandemic victims. They deserve to be seen and heard.
4) The continually nose-diving efficacy of vaccines against each new variant is rarely a headline. In fact, it's not often mentioned. The short-lived efficacy of boosters against new variants is also downplayed.
5) The fact that all vaccines currently in use were designed to cope with the original variant is a key fact that gets edited out of almost every vaccination story. How can you not mention this every single time? It's a core element of the narrative.
6) The changing of definitions during the two years of this pandemic never gets discussed. The definitions of "mitigate" and "vaccine efficacy," for example, have shifted dramatically away from their original early-2020 usage. But no one mentions these shifts and the reasons for them. "Vaccine efficacy" in 2020 referred exclusively to the vaccine preventing infection, period. Now, mainstream media has somehow decided that "vaccine efficacy" refers to preventing hospitalization. This is one reason why network front men do most of the talking rather than actual experts. The front men get away with slovenly, amorphous, and convenient definitions under the auspices of "not being experts."
7) Viral loads and R-values, discussed often in the media while the original variant was dominant, are no longer mentioned. That's because they highlight that the vaccinated now spread disease as efficiently as the unvaccinated, and (due to golden behavioral tickets for the vaccinated) possibly spread it more.
8) Instead of constant comparisons of American Covid policies and results with other nations, American media has taken a very parochial approach. I expected comparisons with other countries to be reported continually during the pandemic. I expected weekly report card segments grading policies and results from around the world. We saw much more of this kind of reporting in 2020. Under Biden, we get very little reporting on how the rest of the world views the United States' Covid policies and results.
Conclusion
All of the facts listed above are more or less hidden from American public view. The obvious questions I've mentioned never get asked. What's stunning is the institutional homogeneity -- it's as if mainstream media is following a ruthless, agreed-upon style guide.
Although more Americans have died from Covid in 2021-22 than in 2020, American media has stopped counting Covid deaths on a minute-to-minute basis. The obvious question is, "Why?"
Despite the deaths and an array of very different, evolved variants, we no longer have a Covid task force fielding questions in front of the American public every week. And here's what really bothers me about that. There is no mention of a lack of a task force, no mention that there had been one, no discussions of whether there should still be one. It's as if the history and the subject of a Covid task force with weekly briefings doesn't exist. No one asks, "Shouldn't we have weekly public briefings?" It's unbelievable to me that, given the major media that call the U.S. home, none are asking for the task force's return. And none are asking why it no longer exists. The Covid task force has become a topic non grata.
What's missing and what's not mentioned are often the most striking evidence of propaganda. In this February 2022 United States, that evidence is everywhere.
Bob Dietz
February 20, 2022
