Alarmed by the absence of context and diversity of opinion.

Dear Basingstoke Residents,

Re:  Basingstoke Gazette Political Anti-Trump Hatchet Job article on one of your own.

 

Having read the above article with some concern about the alleged hurt felt by the Basingstoke Chinese community caused by Councillor Onnalee Cubitt’s tweets describing the coronavirus, Covid-19 as the “Wuhan Flu” due to its origin – I found myself thinking this is a political hatchet job against Conservatives.  Whilst I found the Gazette article unfairly biased and lacking in historical context, being of African origin, I am acutely aware and sensitive to the issues of racism and the damage that it can cause as I have myself been subjected to racism on numerous occasions over the last 30 years, whilst living on and off in Great Britain.

In the interest of transparency, I have never personally met Cllr Cubitt, but am aware of the good work she had previously done for the Basingstoke Borough. As background, I have worked in China and Hong Kong over many years.  Thus, in my humble opinion I feel the Chinese Association have sadly been let down by the Gazette’s poorly researched article, which appeared to reflect some ignorance about historical events and poor handling of such an emotive subject matter by sensationalising the issue.

 

The article in question, is riddled with subliminal programming innuendo, tantamount to saying all whites are racist since it was strategically positioned next to the Maria Miller article talking about the Review into Racism in Basingstoke.  The political hatchet job focuses negatively on a hardworking, diligent Councillor who has demonstrated that she is a person of principle who has stoically stood up to bullies and stand up for what is right by the people of Basingstoke. From where I am sitting presently in Zimbabwe, after having done some research, Cllr Cubitt’s track record has been outstanding as a person who fights for the rights of the people as a whole.

 

Unfortunately, from an outside readers’ point of view, the Gazette has shown that they are more like a left-wing third-rate Rag that would rather spend their time labouring on ‘virtue-signalling’ to score political points enabling others to gain pecuniary advantage over others in order to sell newspapers and clicks. This is no surprise since the Gazette -- GateHouse Media merged with Gannett, creating the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, which adopted the Gannett name in November 2019.  This outfit is exceedingly anti TRUMP, so little wonder we are seeing such an abusive political attack on a Conservative Councillor who happened to have agreed with a Trump sentiment.

Had the Gazette employed investigative practises usually undertaken by a professional investigative Media organisation, they would have followed best practice and unearthed the following information and presented the facts to Cllr Cubitt for comment prior to publication.

I fear some key context has been wilfully or erroneously ignored to the detriment of the complainant by the Gazette in their publishing the article without all the facts and first giving Cllr Cubitt an opportunity to comment. For example, how many of you readers really… I mean really… knew that in 2015, the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a best practise guidance note that addressed the new naming of pathogens convention?

8 May 2015 | GENEVA - WHO today called on scientists, national authorities and the media to follow best practices in naming new human infectious diseases to minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies and people.

Thus, if all facts were placed on the table with full transparency, one could then say that if someone was aware of this new best practice guidance, yet went on to blatantly tweet the disease name containing the location of where it was first found, that could potentially be construed as being bigoted.  That said, one cannot get away from the fact that this dreadful pandemic originated in Wuhan, China. Importantly, other than those organisations/people involved in the WHO’s pathogen naming best practice exercise, the masses and most probably the Gazette had been working on the previously acceptable convention or protocol that was in place for well over 100 years to incorporate location into the name of each pathogen. 

 

Had the Gazette done a better investigative job, they may well have found that Cllr Cubitt may have taken a different stance to that, which they portrayed she did in the article. Unfortunately, we all know a non-story does not sell newspapers.  So, unless there was categorical proof that Cllr Cubitt was indeed aware of this change to the WHO naming convention, I would suggest that the accusations of calling her racist could very well be libellous.

It stands to reason that the Chinese Association in this matter, probably did not know about this convention change either, so in all honesty, would these same Actors be as wound-up to the point of calling people racists when using the terms 'German Measles' or 'Spanish Flu'?  Hopefully not because it simply would not be the case.  In essence both these illnesses were first found and dealt with in those locations, which is where the name was derived from as per the aforementioned protocol.

My research shows that Covid-19 was probably not the first time the World Health Organisation (WHO) has refrained from identifying a pathogen by geographical location of origin.  That said, here are the names of other serious pathogens which have been named in the past by location of origin using the pre-2015 new convention:

·           Zika virus (a forest)

·           Guinea worm (a country)

·           Japanese encephalitis (a country)

·           West Nile virus (a river)

·           German measles (a country)

·           Spanish flu (a country)

·           Ebola (a river)

·           Marburg virus (a German city)

·           Lassa fever (a Nigerian town)

The idea that calling it the Wuhan or CCP virus is racist or irregular couldn’t be further from the truth, and the above historical precedent proves it, because  the idea that the "Wuhan virus" label is racist appears to have sprung up in China’s state media and its propaganda apparatus. Beijing authorities are attempting to silence their critics, who have rightly condemned the Chinese government for its incompetence in facilitating the spread of an emerging global pandemic.  The Gazette should have got off their backside and done the same research normal people have done, they would have seen that their hatchet job article has added to the problem causing more division.

During the first quarter of 2020, the WHO appeared to have demonstrated how sycophantic they have been in their willingness to forego the established conventions due to concerns with political correctness rather than focusing on dealing with containing the virus in China at the outset. Whereas the WHO should have instead been reprimanding China for their lack of transparency and poor performance in handling the outbreak in the first place.  This act of complicity compromised the integrity of the WHO in many people’s eyes.  Now the WHO have finally come clean and said that China did not officially report the illnesses in January, they found out through whistle blowers. Do your research people.

In reality, any anger should be directed at the WHO for the deaths you have suffered in Basingstoke and the UK due to the world-wide spread of Covid-19.  On the flip side of the coin, I did not see the Gazette or any of the organisations mentioned in the article giving any thought or condolences for the loss and hurt experienced by all of those families who have lost loved one’s because the initial handling of this pandemic by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  Remember, the CCP and China’s handling of this pandemic is now under investigation.

 

More importantly, it should be worrisome for everyone that poor ‘investigative’ journalism has become pervasive throughout our Mainstream Media (MSM), which is now endowing local newspapers like the Basingstoke Gazette as well. This should alarm all UK citizens irrespective of one’s race, religion, gender or creed.  Expecting to enjoy freedom of speech in a civil society, where minority Pressure-Groups have been given so much power by weak Politicians, so much so that they feel they can now employ Nazi like tactics to shutdown free-speech and those who disagree with their narrative by using the word racism. This would be a dangerous path to follow.

As Britons, you are all privileged to live in a town as affluent as Basingstoke, which is teeming with lots of wonderful intelligent creative people of all races, including some who may or may not know all of our history and can thus be forgiven for jumping to the wrong conclusions.  You the people of Basingstoke should ignore these complaints of alleged racism in this article, because the poor handling of the Gazette article that severely undermines the true meaning and severity of racism, which we all agree is a blight on the world as a whole.

So, come on the wonderful people of Basingstoke, you already have an inclusive, thriving civil society that can only prosper if you all pull your weight and pull together, contributing to the new tomorrow -- post Covid-19.  Do not allow this insidious left-wing sickness to blight your town by kicking out one of the few can-do people on your Borough Council, you need hard working, straight talking, take no bullshit from bullies, people of good values and integrity to make the Borough Council run effectively, efficiently to service your needs.

The people of Basingstoke should demand quality journalism and stop buying the Gazette until they wake up and start being objective and neutral in future articles.  

Now would be a good time to teach the Gazette that if they "Go WOKE they will Go BROKE".

Good luck with the post Covid-19 rebuilding of the UK’s economy and Basingstoke’s economy. I know Botswana has a massive challenge of its own, which is where I will spend the next year helping people.