Back during the ancient history pandemic days of anxiety, lockdowns and vaccine campaigns, there was one voice – apart from the Prime Minister and the Director-General of Health – who felt like a ubiquitous presence on our screens and on our radios.
Dr. Siouxsie Wiles, a microbiologist from the University of Auckland – acclaimed researcher into infectious diseases and an award-winning science communicator – was never an official part of the Covid communications campaign.
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But her tireless willingness to say yes to every media offer of airtime – over 2000 interviews over two years – helping hammer home important lessons about the risks to public health, meant that she was critical to the success of the first wave of Aotearoa’s response.
It also meant that, when the public opinion tide turned, she had a target on her back.
The new documentary, Ms. Information is an extension of a short documentary that was put online in 2020 as part of the excellent Loading Docs scheme. That was a much more celebratory story than the one we have now.
Director Gwen Isaac continued to follow Wiles through 2021, culminating in the bizarre parallels of a New Zealander of the Year Award at the same time as the hate mail and online harassment was becoming almost unbearable.
Wiles is a paradoxical figure. On one hand she stubbornly insists on getting up at sparrow fart to try and school breakfast television hosts about the nature of infectious diseases and at the same time she protests that she hates to be the centre of attention and wishes she’d never said yes to being in the documentary.
Before Covid the reasons why she was such a public figure were clear. Her Bioluminescent Superbugs lab at the University of Auckland is chronically underfunded and anything she can do to draw attention to it helps meet the growing shortfalls.
In the film she tells some Victoria University students how every fee for public speaking she ever received is donated back to her lab.
But there’s also the fact that she’s really good at it – science communication that is. Not many people are. So, why shouldn’t she continue to do something that she’s excellent at?
Well, it appears that the science community are conflicted. A loud, opinionated, pink-haired media star can’t possibly be a good scientist at the same time. I’ll leave you to discuss why those conclusions are held by so many on so little evidence.
I was quite shaken by Ms. Information – largely the reminders of that anxious time in early 2020 when we knew so little and feared so much.
I hadn’t quite realised the extent to which I’ve supressed my own emotions around that episode, choosing to remember the unexpected positivity of the first lockdown and then the heady Covid-free days when we were the only country in the world to live life in relatively normal circumstances.
But then the film – and the country – takes a turn. Opposition to the Covid response gets louder and less reasonable. Conspiracy theories take hold in the minds of people who once upon a time might have known better.
People in government were relatively protected from the abuse that followed but Wiles was independent – and on her own.
One day historians will use this film to tell the story of New Zealand’s role in this dark period in world history. Somehow the greatest information technology advance ever has become this vehicle for misinformation, fantasy, bitterness and rage – not for everyone but for a few.
The examples of the abuse that Wiles received during that period are apparently all genuine and they are deeply offensive and deeply depressing.
Instead of enlightenment, the Internet has encouraged some people to forget the essential humanity of everyone on the other end of a tweet or an email or a phone message. “You kiss your mother with that mouth,” I wanted to say to some of them.
But Wiles is mostly resolute in the face of the torrents of hate spewed her way. Standing up to bullying emboldens her, but for her caught-in-the-barrage family there are mixed feelings.
Ms. Information is rated M for offensive language and – believe me – some of it aimed at Ms. Wiles is very offensive indeed. The film is in select cinemas across the motu now.