The Betrayal of the People

How the media abandoned truth, silenced dissent, and served the state

The fog of the COVID era is lifting, and what remains is stark. Only after the storm does the damage reveal itself in full. I reflect not just on what happened, but how it happened, how an entire population was brought to heel, how critical thought was sidelined, and how something so obviously destructive was sold as public health.

Above all, I see how pernicious the role of the mainstream media truly was. They didn’t merely echo the government line, they shaped it, sanctified it, and sold it. Without their complicity, none of it could have taken hold. This wasn’t journalistic fatigue. It was a wholesale abdication of duty.

The BBC, Sky, ITV, and Channel 4 weren’t passive observers. They were willing handmaidens in a choreographed deception, a closed loop of narrative control, where dissent was excluded and fear was amplified. They sang from the same hymn sheet and made sure we did too.

What struck me most wasn’t just the silence, but the spineless conformity of some of its most celebrated voices. Take Emily Maitlis, James O’Brien, and Andrew Neil as a sample few, journalists who pride themselves on speaking truth to power, figures who relish reputations for fearless interrogation, so long as it’s fashionable or safe.

But when it mattered most, they fell into line. They didn’t just stick to the script, they actively helped to enforce it. Not only did they fail to question, they ridiculed and suppressed those who did. They raised no serious challenge to lockdown strategy, offered no real scrutiny of vaccine mandates, said nothing of the needless isolation deaths or the masking of children, and embraced coercive behavioural science tactics without a murmur. They had the platform, but not the backbone.

Emily Maitlis, for example, was rightly lauded for her takedown of Prince Andrew in a poised and incisive interview that became a cultural event and was later adapted as a Netflix film. But where was that bravery when civil liberties were suspended, children were denied education, and the elderly were left to die alone? It’s easy to be brave when the villain is already cast. It’s harder to expose lies in a narrative you’re helping to sell.

I’ll admit, I was slow to see it. I’ve always been cynical about politicians, and I fully expect them to exploit power. But I still clung to the idea that the media was meant to be the firebreak, the safeguard between state and people, the institution that says, “Hold on,” not “How high?” Instead, they cheered from the sidelines and asked for more.

In the end, they weren’t journalists but obedient actors in a state-sanctioned drama, sticking to the script, staying within the lines, and cashing the cheques. They weren’t brave or bold. They were craven, supine, and loyal to the lie.

That alone would be shameful. But they didn’t stop at silence. They, and a media class that should have known better, actively colluded in the suppression, censorship, and smearing of dissenting voices, scientists, doctors, parents, and citizens who dared to question the dogma or suggest less destructive paths. These people deserved airtime, debate, and discussion. Instead, they were vilified. And figures like Maitlis, O’Brien, Neil and many of their colleagues, weren’t just bystanders to that vilification, they were part of the machine that drove it.

When journalism was most needed, the mainstream journalists didn’t just fail in their duty, they sided with power against the people. They didn’t defend humanity, they helped to break it. The cost of that betrayal is still being counted in broken trust, broken lives, and a fractured society.

So I pose this question: what is the point of the mainstream media? Because when the stakes were highest, in our hour of need, it served only the interests of power, and not the people. This discredited institution, as I see it now, is an empty husk, echoing with hypocrisy and driven by nothing but profit. Whatever integrity it once claimed is long gone. It holds the public in disdain, serves power without question, and deserves nothing in return but our contempt.

And yet, despite all of this, I end on a note of hope. I no longer consume mainstream media, not out of apathy, but as a conscious act of rejection. In its place, I’ve found something far more valuable: a growing network of independent journalists, writers, broadcasters, YouTubers, and podcasters. They are not household names, and most will never be rich. But they are brave and they speak truth. They expose the ugly underbelly of power. And thanks to platforms like this, they are not going away. They cannot be silenced. They are the new lifeblood of public discourse, and I am deeply grateful for them.