News stories don’t just pre-exist somewhere out there, walking around intact and whole, waiting for an equal chance to step through the door of a media outlet and into the public arena.
They exist in tiny bits and pieces, among heaps of junk and distortions and agendas — and the bits are selected, assessed, ranked, and assembled, according to the rigour and professionalism, or the whim and worldview, of the journalists and outlets involved.
Barry Soper chose to construct a pretty ugly beast out of their scraps. The Herald chose to parade it. Then they stepped back and let everyone else feed it, until the whole thing became something big and real-seeming enough to cause genuine uncertainty and fear, and to prompt genuine attempts to do the proper journalistic work of understanding what this new health initiative is all about.
I don’t think there’s any dispute the herald reporting was factually accurate. The issue is that it was very heavily biased and was obviously designed to be inflammatory clickbait.
Eh, the main reason for the outrage, in my view, is that usually they’re doing this to favour the point of view the author holds.
Having the media not on their side must have been a shock to them.