New documentary on the role of the media in shaping the COVID-19 craze in Belgium

mrchibbs

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It's an amazing piece of work, honestly.

It's from a Belgian film-maker who thoroughly dissected the chain of events we've all gone through since last spring, and especially how the media shaped the narrative in Belgium.

Sadly, it is only in french at the moment, but apparently they are hard at work and english subtitles will be available soon.

 

burtlancast

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It's good, but not without bias.

It does a good job exposing the pharma ties of the scientists counseling the government.

But it then drops the ball big time when it claims it's the politicians who put a lot of pressure on the pharmaceutical firms to quickly come up with a vaccine.

Big Pharma and politicians work hand in hand, they're indistinguishable, yet the filmmaker attempts to put all the blame solely on the later.
 
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mrchibbs

mrchibbs

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It's good, but not without bias.

It does a good job exposing the pharma ties of the scientists counseling the government.

But it then drops the ball big time when it claims it's the politicians who put a lot of pressure on the pharmaceutical firms to quickly come up with a vaccine.

Big Pharma and politicians work hand in hand, they're indistinguishable, yet the filmmaker attempts to put all the blame solely on the later.

Mmh. I didn't see it that way.

We all have our biases, no way around it.

I don't agree with all of his opinions, and that's fine, but the intent and energy behind this movie is very powerful and to me that's the most imporant thing.

It's a great contribution, and will help a lot of people rethink this situation.
 
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mrchibbs

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That being said, of course, regulatory capture is the fundamental problem of the modern political-economic system and it is the corporations which have led the groundwork for the governments to react this way, but I think the filmmaker chose a good careful approach and managed to strike a balance so that this movie could reach more people.

To say the government IS big pharma might have been too much for lay people to accept, and in such situations, they tend to reject the rest of the information.
 

Karamela

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It's a very good film indeed with 650000 viewings in the first 3 days. Given the fact that it is only in FR for the moment it is an impressive result. It points a finger on the mass media ( generally of very low standard in BE) spinning the massive hysteria about Covid and producing fake news, and on the so-called "experts" advising the politicians and having side jobs with the pharmaceutical industry... it's funny to watch these 'experts' contort themselves trying to limit the damage ?
 

burtlancast

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To comeback to my earlier point, the film maker, Bernard Crutzen, is an insider to the media industry, which allowed access to the various personalities.

He chose to lie and misled the public at 44.00 in the doc: he shows 3 different people repeating the same lie, in succession one after the other, that it's the government who put the pressure on the pharmaceutical firms to come up quickly with a vaccine.

Very telling is Caroline Vandermeeren, presented as a doctor in biotechnlogy.

What Bernard doesn't want spectators to realize is she is herself a hired manager in a consulting firm working with pharmaceutical corporations.

Here's a clip where she presents herself as an aspiring manager eager to please her employers.

What better way to please them than by shifting the probable future scandals from the untested ARNm vaccines from the Pharma corporations to the inept politicians?

Crutzen, the Pharma corporations' best friend ?

 
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mrchibbs

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I really don't see the lie here or the problems you seem to find, but fair enough
 

burtlancast

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Creuzen lied with malice in order to convince the people that Pharma firms were innocent victims, together with the public, of corrupt/inept politicians and greedy academicians counseling the government.

Poor public.

Poor Pharma firms.
 
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mrchibbs

mrchibbs

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Creuzen lied with malice in order to convince the people Pharma firms were innocent victims, together with the public, of corrupt/inept politicians and greedy academicians counseling the government.

Poor public.

Poor Pharma firms.

I didn't see it that way at all.

In fact, as I understood it, the documentary pointed towards the influence of pharma firms and their consultants in shaping government action and media narrative.

It seems like they had tried this (and failed) during the H1N1 epidemic.
 

burtlancast

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mrchibbs

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Karamela

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I didn't see it that way at all.

In fact, as I understood it, the documentary pointed towards the influence of pharma firms and their consultants in shaping government action and media narrative.

It seems like they had tried this (and failed) during the H1N1 epidemic.
Exactly
 

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