Yesterday morning, as is my wont, I clicked onto Sky News to read the dominant stories of the day. There I learnt that that Sky News had won best News Channel at Royal Television Society awards - as Sophy Ridge was named Presenter of the Year. RTS judges praised the 'excellent journalism, high production values, and clear analysis', adding that Sky News was 'hard to beat' in the news channel category. I must say that I was not surprised by this award which, I gather, is about the 8th year in a row. Sophie Ridge, in particular, has a very unique style who can make you feel that she is talking to you personally about an issue and I do not find this characteristic in any news presenter. The BBC consistently 'pulls its punches' having been savaged so often by past governments and always seems to be a little behind the curve compared with Sky News, to which I now turn as my news channel of choice. On the subject of accurate journalism, Sky News did a fact check on the speech that Trump recently made to the joint houses of the American Congress and did discover a litany of errors. But when these are pointed out, the riposte is always that they are 'fake news' (which is ironic in the circumstances) or waved away as political propaganda. I suspect that these fact checking articles are hardly reported in any case in the American media and, if they are reported, are immediately rebutted and are not believed. I continue to wonder why these evident mistruths are believed and discovered the following. 'Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth', is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Among psychologists something like this known as the 'illusion of truth' effect. Here's how a typical experiment on the effect works: participants rate how true trivia items are, things like 'A prune is a dried plum'. Sometimes these items are true (like that one), but sometimes participants see a parallel version which isn't true (something like 'A date is a dried plum'). After a break – of minutes or even weeks – the participants do the procedure again, but this time some of the items they rate are new, and some they saw before in the first phase. The key finding is that people tend to rate items they've seen before as more likely to be true, regardless of whether they are true or not, and seemingly for the sole reason that they are more familiar. This is interesting if not earth shattering and shows the effect of the media taking an observation and repeating it 'x' number of times. Given the predominantly right-wing nature of the media in the USA, then such lies become the new truth and are believed -and thus get cemented in as a political reality. I suppose this is all very depressing really and one can only support the genuinely 'free' press to act as some kind of counterweight. Having been brought up to regard the BBC as semi-sacred, I remember vividly the impression that I first gained when I saw Fox News in the USA and could scarcely believe bow so partisan a channel could have the prominence in American life that it has.
Yesterday morning on my 'shopping' day, there was another short term crisis in the care agency and I needed to act as the second helper to the young college student who was the sole carer available to get Meg up. I did not mind helping him and we get on very well together but it is not the best start to the day for either of us. This is happening on a regular basis (ie about once a day when I am called upon to help) and although I am always willing, it puts me in a dilemma. If I were to refuse, then two care workers might be available eventually but this might well adversely affect the rest of the day and all of my plans might fall over so I will have a think about this. Later in the day, the care worker who had visited this morning came do to do the 'sit' whilst I went shopping and stayed on for the lunchtime call (when there should, in theory, be a second care worker in attendance.) I have now discovered that that there will only be one care worker for Meg's tea-time call which means that there will have been three occasions in the day when what should have been a 'double' call is staff by a single care-worker (which could be illegal if hoisting is involved that requires two workers to be operating the machinery). But at least we are experiencing some spring-like weather which helps us all feel better in the long run.
This afternoon, Meg and I watched one of the Lucy Worsley programmes on Greatest Fibs in British History. Lucy Worsley likes to add a counter-narrative to the generally accepted, or received, view of British history and today she was focusing on the Reformation. I must say that the way in which the monasteries were dissolved and much of their 'social services' role stripped away whilst economic power was tilted towards the already rich and powerful rather reminded me of what is happening in Donalds' Trump's America. I am also struck by the parallels to be drawn between Henry's breach with Rome (and things continental) found more than a ready echo in our Brexit adventure. Meanwhile, I learn from Sky News that the New Zealand foreign minister has been dismissed for giving a speech in London to Chatham House (which specialises in international affairs) The minister had suggested that Trump did not have a very good grasp of history, particularly as far as Churchill was concerned. He was promptly fired for his candour which is a terrible state of affairs when statesmen and diplomats across the world are frightened to say what they think of Trump in case severe sanctions are the inevitable consequence. European leaders are scrambling around to try to find mechanisms of raising lots of money to boost defence budgets in view of the fact that Trump's USA has de fact withdrawn support from Nato allies.
© Mike Hart [2025]