No Fairness Doctrine in the Media Here...

Today, tucked away on an inside page of the Metro which is a Russian owned newspaper of sorts that is distributed for free in Bath, Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle and  Sheffield was a little article allowing the Minister of Health Mr Hunt to comment on the strike without a response from the Junior Doctors.


From the beginning much of the media has supported Mr Hunt trying to drive a wedge between the Junior Doctors and the public as opposed to highlighting the attack on the NHS which Mr Hunt has apparently been given as his mandate.


In this instance the article focussed on blaming the Junior Doctors for the strike which was called off at the last minute rather than explaining that Mr Hunt finally agreed to drop his longstanding demand – albeit temporarily – to impose a punitive new contract on England’s 45,000 junior doctors if agreement was not reached.


His unwillingness to negotiate and his willingness to spread misinformation and outright lies resulted in the Junior Doctors voting overwhelmingly-98%-to strike in protest.


So rather than Mr Hunt being called out as the cause in this debate and being responsible for the strike all that could be reported was that the operations and the doctor's appointments which had been cancelled and could not be rescheduled were strictly the responsibility of the Junior Doctors.


Hunt, whose handling of the dispute caused huge concern in the NHS and medical establishment, must surely no have to answer questions over why he took so long to, in effect, stage a climb-down.


It seems quite obvious to me that if Jeremy Hunt were really concerned with client safety, with the welfare of junior doctors and  the continued existence of the NHS he would have agreed to independent talks when it was first put to him. 


Rather than give him a platform to blame the Junior Doctors the paper should have led with an apology on his part to those patients who had been inconvenienced by his actions.


But that would imply that he actually cared.