Denmark’s leading newspaper, Ekstra Bladet, spent the past few years doing what most mainstream media sources across the globe did: regurgitating and parroting without question government messaging surrounding COVID and vaccines, no matter how false.
However, albeit far too late, the paper recently did a 180, publishing an article apologizing for its part in spreading false propaganda about COVID. Ekstra Bladet is a Danish tabloid newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus in Copenhagen and was founded in 1904. It has remained one of the country’s most-digested news sources in print and online.
Ekstra Bladet‘s letter to its viewers, published last month, is titled “Vi fejlede,” which means “We failed.”
“THE CONSTANT mental alertness has worn out tremendously on all of us. That is why we – the press – must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed,” Ekstra Bladet reporter Brian Weichardt wrote in the apology article.
Ekstra Bladet wrote [translated in english]:
For ALMOST two years, we – the press and the population – have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities’ daily coronatal.
WE HAVE STARED at the oscillations of the number pendulum when it came to infected, hospitalized and died with corona. And we have been given the significance of the pendulum’s smallest movements laid out by experts, politicians and authorities, who have constantly warned us about the dormant corona monster under our beds. A monster just waiting for us to fall asleep so it can strike in the gloom and darkness of the night.
THE CONSTANT mental alertness has worn out tremendously on all of us. That is why we – the press – must also take stock of our own efforts. And we have failed.
WE HAVE NOT been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalized with corona and not because of corona. Because it makes a difference. A big difference. Exactly, the official hospitalization numbers have been shown to be 27 percent higher than the actual figure for how many there are in the hospital, simply because they have corona. We only know that now.
OF COURSE, it is first and foremost the authorities who are responsible for informing the population correctly, accurately and honestly. The numbers for how many are sick and died of corona should, for obvious reasons, have been published long ago, so we got the clearest picture of the monster under the bed.
IN ALL, the messages of the authorities and politicians to the people in this historic crisis leave much to be desired. And therefore they lie as they have ridden when parts of the population lose confidence in them.
ANOTHER example: The vaccines are consistently referred to as our ‘superweapon’. And our hospitals are called ‘superhospitals’. Nevertheless, these super-hospitals are apparently maximally pressured, even though almost the entire population is armed with a super-weapon. Even children have been vaccinated on a huge scale, which has not been done in our neighboring countries.
IN OTHER WORDS, there is something here that does not deserve the term ‘super’. Whether it’s the vaccines, the hospitals, or a mixture of it all, is every man’s bid. But at least the authorities’ communication to the population in no way deserves the term ‘super’. On the contrary.
Neil Oliver, a Scottish TV host, reacted to the Danish newspaper’s apology for COVID-19 coverage throughout the first two years of the pandemic.
“I suspect that what’s happening is that it’s simply that newspaper, that organization has realized that the jig is up. You know they’ve been caught out,” said Oliver during the interview with GB News.
“They’re now trying to explain themselves and get themselves out of the hole that they’re in. I presume that the media organizations, mainstream media in the UK and elsewhere would try the same tactic but again I say I think it’s too late,” he added.
