Here we look at
a. the announcement to the parents of John the Baptist;
b. the heralding role of John the Baptist.
Future posts will continue this series.
2020-05-16
Gospels Cut From Jewish Scriptures, #2
Day: May 16, 2020
The Weaponization of Language (Part 2a): Censorship update
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
by Neil Godfrey
From The Guardian the day after I posted The Weaponization of Language (Part 2): Censorship
Faced with an appalling US coronavirus death toll, the right denies the figures
Fox News is foremost in promoting the idea that official figures are inflated, whereas experts believe more people have died
.
As Donald Trump agitates for the US to reopen, the American right appears to have found a novel way to deal with the rising coronavirus death toll: deny it altogether.
Top Trump officials, huddled in the White House, itself the subject of a coronavirus outbreak, have according to reports begun questioning the number of deaths – and the president is among the skeptics.
It’s a handy thought process for an administration desperate to send Americans back to work even as deaths from the virus rise each day, with marked surges in some traditionally Republican states.
. . . .
Worryingly, the disinformation push seems to be working. An Axios-Ipsos poll found that the death toll has become a political issue, 40% of Republicans believing fewer Americans are dying from coronavirus than the official toll says.
A separate study, published at the end of April, revealed the stark consequences of prominent figures underplaying the impact of Covid-19. A group of researchers tracked the spread of coronavirus among viewers of Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, after Hannity spent weeks downplaying the threat.
“Greater exposure to Hannity,” the researchers wrote, “leads to a greater number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.”
.