
If there’s one thing that Australians are more afraid of than a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus, it’s looking to be overreacting.
One of the worst things you can be called, especially as a woman, is hysterical.
It means you’re out of touch with reality. You’re a fearmonger. You sit at home in your tin foil hat, trying to convince people in the depths of the internet that our politicians are actually lizards, ready to attack at anytime.
And no one wants to be that person.
The Media has, over too many decades, published countless hyperboles, overstated things we shouldn’t have, and buried stories we ought to have platformed. We’ve positioned ourselves as the truth tellers, proclaiming we’re keeping our governments to account, and too many times – we’ve failed to do either.
We are in the midst of a global pandemic, and people don’t trust the media anymore.
They don’t really trust governments either. Or experts. There are more voices than ever competing for the microphone and all we’re hearing are the muffled musings of voices that can’t agree.
It has been said, that people don’t hoard toilet paper, stocking enough to last them until Christmas, when they trust their government. Brawls in local supermarkets don’t happen when people feel in control. This behaviour is symptomatic of a population who has no idea – really – what they’re actually meant to do.
So, what do we know for sure?
We know that this is not business as usual.