On her Twitter profile Susanna Reid describes herself as a “Presenter, journalist, columnist. “Liberal snowflake TV clothes horse.” There are two photographs of her. In one she’s lounging on a zebra print chair wearing a pair of leather trousers and stiletto heels. It’s fair to say that Reid is rather fond of herself. She’s best known for co-presenting Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan.
The pair, Morgan in particular, achieved a degree of notoriety for a series of hostile interviews during lockdown, haranguing guests, interrupting them and shouting them down, to the extent that the viewer hasn’t a clue what’s going on, or who is telling the truth. Neither Reid nor Morgan are journalists. Susanna is wretched, as she demonstrated on Monday morning’s show.
Coming out of a short film that featured a contribution by the poet and mental health campaigner Hussain Manawer, Reid said this:
“I do just want to say to people you know, this will pass. Things are going to get better and there’s a line in that erm film just hold on that’s what we’ve gotta do, just hold on because you know there is a light now at the end of the tunnel. Erm the lockdown will come to an end, erm the vaccination programme is making history, it is rolling out at an incredible rate we are world beating. More jabs going into more arms which means that we will be safer. And we can emerge from this darkness blinking into the light and I promise it will get better. So if you’re finding it tough right now erm….you know there are resources online and Hussain Manawer puts it so perfectly doesn’t he in that piece of film…..erm….but I promise, it will get better.”
She then broke down. It was pathetic. The media has failed spectacularly to demand from the government, proof that lockdowns work, or that they are lawful. It has also failed to properly scrutinise the approval of experimental vaccines that have been rushed to market at the speed of light. When ministers are on Good Morning Britain, they are criticised for the death rate, for not locking down sooner and not locking down hard enough. Neither Reid nor Morgan have ever properly examined the legitimacy of lockdowns or the damage they cause to lives and livelihoods. Vaccine safety hasn’t been explored either. I mean if Pfizer and AstraZeneca say that their jabs are safe, they must be safe right?
Susanna Reid crossed a line yesterday. She abandoned the pretence that she is there to ask hard questions on behalf of her viewers and hold the government to account. Yesterday’s embarrassing and cringeworthy performance exposed her as little more than a propagandist. Joseph Goebbels would have approved.