A mainstream Danish newspaper has apologized to its readers for “hypnotically” and unquestioningly following government narratives on COVID-19.
The headline of the Ekstra Bladet reads, “WE FAILED,” in which the paper’s editorial team wrote that “for almost two years, we – the press and the population – have been almost hypnotically preoccupied with the authorities’ daily coronavirus figures.”
"We Failed"
One of the largest newspapers in Denmark is apologizing for its journalistic failure during COVID-19 by only publishing official government messages without questioning them. Via @Niemandsknecht https://t.co/0DfZAOXduT
— Jan Nieuwenhuijs (@JanGold_) January 11, 2022
The paper, as was first pointed out by former New York Times columnist and popular Substack writer Bari Weiss, explained that the press has 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.”
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) January 12, 2022
The article charges that politicians and authorities have “lied” about various aspects of the pandemic, prompting these establishments to lose the public trust, noting that the efficacy of vaccines to end the pandemic was also vastly overstated by health authorities.
The paper called into question Denmark’s wide-scale vaccination of children, which has not been done in Sweden or Norway.
“The vaccines are consistently referred to as our ‘superweapon.’ And our hospitals are called ‘superhospitals,’” the editors wrote. “Nevertheless, these super-hospitals are apparently maximally pressured, even though almost the entire population is armed with a superweapon. Even children have been vaccinated on a huge scale, which has not been done in our neighboring countries.”
Ekstra Bladet’s public apology is part of a growing trend in the European media that has begun to question the narrative and the governments’ responses to it. For example, one of Germany’s top newspapers, Bild, issued an apology last August for fearmongering over COVID, specifically about claims that children were “going to murder their grandma.”
Julian Reichelt, the editor-in-chief of @BILD – one of the largest newspapers in Germany, apologized to the children of Germany for the COVID-19 coverage in his newspaper that made them “victims of neglect, isolation and loneliness.”
Read the subtitles. pic.twitter.com/hn0B0u5H3E
— Amy Tarkanian (@MrsT106) August 2, 2021
“To the millions of children in this country for whom our society is responsible, I want to express here what neither our government nor our Chancellor dares to tell you. We ask you to forgive us,” said editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt.
“Forgive us for this policy which, for a year and a half, has made you victims of violence, neglect, isolation, and loneliness,” he said. “We persuaded our children that they were going to murder their grandma if they dared to be what they are, children. Or if they met their friends. None of this has been scientifically proven.”
