Stop Media Causing Fuel Shortages?

 I’ve seen a few people making comments that they think the government should step in to control the media to prevent panic buying. Being charitable I’m assuming they’ve not really thought through what they’re suggesting and the possible implications in the future.

 

 The problem isn’t the media reporting the news as such, it’s people making their own decisions based on their lives and priorities. Despite some of the images posted online of jerry cans I don’t believe many people are panic buying, the vast majority of people are buying fuel because they’re worried that it might not be available tomorrow or next week. The majority of people queuing for fuel say that their need is genuine but then suggest that everyone else is panic buying without seeing the apparent irony of this. “My fuel purchase is essential, everyone else is panicking”  The reality as reported originally is that fuel stations are affected by the lack of HGV drivers and have lack of certain grades of fuel at certain times. I’d certainly experienced that in the last few weeks at stations other than BP where one day one grade was unavailable and a few days later others were missing.

 

The real scaremongering is taking place on Twitter and Facebook sharing pictures of queues and of some drivers filling up cans without any verification of where or when the pictures were taken. Those sorts of images are the real culprits and have caused RNLI volunteers to be verbally abused getting fuel to run their boats. Some may argue that they should have their own supplies but it would be unrealistic for every location to have their own petrol supplies. Social media are the real culprits here not the likes of BBC and ITV that actually verify information before broadcast. Pictures shared online as representing one thing can be originally from something completely different yet make their way around the world with the misleading labels.

 

If you actually stop and think about the suggestion that the government should control the media it leads to a very dangerous and worrying situation that would be like Russia or Nazi Germany where the entire news output is controlled to say what the state wants. I’m sure that’s not the aim of those who think they are well intentioned to limit bad news but it will be an outcome. It might not be today or tomorrow but once the government has those powers it is a very slippery slope to control of everything that can be published, ironically with no similar controls on social media suggested.

If such a law is written that prohibits publication of any news that might cause panic or concern amongst the population then almost anything could be covered by that. The recent murder of Sarah Everard allegedly by a serving police officer could easily fall under that rule to prevent loss of trust in the police or to prevent vigilante action if a murderer was on the loose.  

A free press is the cornerstone of a democracy and we need to make sure that we don’t sleepwalk into a situation where controls are proposed that seriously impact the ability of the press to tell us what is going on. Of course there need to be rules against misinformation and the press made accountable for the news they publish but essentially at the moment they are self regulated via IPSO but need to comply with criminal and civil law. https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/press-regulation/