UK media coverage of the Liberal Democrats / Political, Media elite cronyism

[Shekwan]

Read an interesting piece in The Guardian about the attitude of the UK media towards the Liberal Democrats:

Spoiler :

Nick Clegg's rise could lock Murdoch and the media elite out of UK politics

At the Sun, we deliberately ignored the Lib Dems. The cosy pro-Cameron press may now be left floundering.

I doubt if Rupert Murdoch watched the election debate last week. His focus is very firmly on the United States, especially his resurgent Wall Street Journal. But if he did, there would have been one man totally unknown to him. One man utterly beyond the tentacles of any of his family, his editors or his advisers. That man is Nick Clegg.

Make no mistake, if the Liberal Democrats actually won the election – or held the balance of power – it would be the first time in decades that Murdoch was locked out of British politics. In so many ways, a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote against Murdoch and the media elite.

I can say this with some authority because in my five years editing the Sun I did not once meet a Lib Dem leader, even though I met Tony Blair, William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith on countless occasions. (Full disclosure: I have since met Nick Clegg.)

I remember in my first year asking if we staffed the Liberal Democrat conference. I was interested because as a student I'd been a founder member of the SDP. I was told we did not. We did not send a single reporter for fear of encouraging them.

So while we sent a team of five, plus assorted senior staff, to both the Tory and Labour conferences, we sent nobody to the Lib Dems. And while successive News International chiefs have held parties at both those conferences, they have never to my knowledge even attended a Lib Dem conference.

It gets even worse. While it would be wrong to say the Lib Dems were banned from Murdoch's papers (indeed, the Times has a good record in this area), I would say from personal experience that they are often banned – except where the news is critical. They are the invisible party, purposely edged off the paper's pages and ignored. But it is worse than that, because it is not just the Murdoch press that is guilty of this. The fact is that much of the print press in this country is entirely partisan and always has been. All proprietors and editors are part of the "great game". The trick is to ally yourself with the winner and win influence or at least the ear of the prime minister.

The consequence of this has been that the middle party has been ignored, simply because it was assumed it would never win power. After all, why court a powerless party?

So, as the pendulum swings from red to blue and back to red, the newspapers, or many of them, swing with it – sometimes ahead of the game and sometimes behind.

Over the years the relationships between the media elite and the two main political parties have become closer and closer to the point where, now, one is indistinguishable from the other. Indeed, it is difficult not to think that the lunatics have stopped writing about the asylum and have actually taken it over.

We now live in an era when very serious men and women stay out of politics because our national discourse is conducted by populists with no interest in politics whatsoever. What we have in the UK is a coming together of the political elite and the media in a way that makes people outside London or outside those elites feel disenfranchised and powerless. But all that would go to pot if Clegg were able to somehow pull off his miracle. For he is untainted by it.

Just imagine the scene in many of our national newspaper newsrooms on the morning a Lib-Lab vote has kept the Tories out of office. "Who knows Clegg?" they would say.

There would be a resounding silence.

"Who can put in a call to Gordon?" another would cry.

You would hear a pin drop on the editorial floor.

The fact is these papers, and others, decided months ago that Cameron was going to win. They are now invested in his victory in the most undemocratic fashion. They have gone after the prime minister in a deeply personal way and until last week they were certain he was in their sights.

I hold no brief for Nick Clegg. But now, thanks to him – an ingenue with no media links whatsoever – things look very different, because now the powerless have a voice as well as the powerful.

All of us who care about democracy must celebrate this over the coming weeks – even if Cameron wins in the end, at least some fault lines will have been exposed.

David Yelland

Interesting stuff. Yelland is a former editor of The Sun, and he says that they entirely ignored the Liberal Democrats deliberately in their political coverage. He says this is a trend in the UK media, where they are completely locked into either favouring Labour or the Tories in an effort to win favours when their guy gets in. He also points out that this is creating a dangerous conflation of the interests of the media and political elites.

A quick glance at The Sun's election coverage online confirms a hostile attitude to the LibDems: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/election2010/

Three stories on the front page about them and all are extremely critical. Obviously this is The Sun, not the most subtle of slanderers, but it sells so its certainly shaping a lot of opinions.

Opinions of this? On a more local level about the UK media and their coverage of the third party, and more broadly this convergence of the interests of the media and political elite. I know this will be nothing new to American posters, as their media is even further along in this process of media outlets serving to support a political ideology/party.

 

[Frank327]

I was pretty amazed by how obvious the bias was in the sun articles. But one question: don't most british people watch the BBC news? And isn't the BBC at least a bit impartial?

I'm mostly amazed that if a newspaper has a bias to one side during four years, then switches sides the next 4 years etc. is actually still being sold in decent numbers. Why would people keep buying it?

 

[Truronian]

Newspapers here are horribly biased, particularly the tabloids. I imagine this is somewhat thanks to television news being pretty neutral... what are newspapers like in America where the TV news is mostly partisan opinion pieces?

Interesting article BTW... The Mail, Express and Sun have all been floundering since Cleggs boost in the opinion polls. They can't decide whether to publicize his ousting of Brown from #2 or attack him due to the votes he's potentially stealing from the Conservatives.

 

[spryllino]

I'm mostly amazed that if a newspaper has a bias to one side during four years, then switches sides the next 4 years etc. is actually still being sold in decent numbers. Why would people keep buying it?

The Sun is populist; it isn't right wing or left wing. It changes sides with the tide of popular opinion. It isn't really a serious newspaper in the sense that many others are. Page 3 is imfamous. It isn't really intended for those who truly care what its bias is.

 

[Shekwan]

Page three has not been immune to politicisation either:



In case you can't tell, the middle picture was run as the image in page three (traditionally theres a picture of a topless 18 - 25 y/o girl) with the caption, "Heres how Page Three will look like under Kinnock".

Keep in mind this is a very popular paper though.

 

[GinandTonic]

The Sun is right wing, but it claims to be the voice of the people. So as much as it leads it's readers it must be led by the expected result.

What would be fascinating would be the repercussions for politics of a Lib/ Lab coalition. Lab only gained any support from the Murdock press after they agreed to renegotiate Murdock's exemption from EU media rules. Lab and Tory are wedded to courting the Murdock press, though for Lab it's clearly a deal with the devil to minimise the damage. If the Libs get a say in power they have no reason not to go at Murdock - EU regs, monopoly legislation, anti-competitive vertical integration.

 

[spryllino]

The Sun isn't right wing! The Daily Mail is the right wing paper for the undereducated (as opposed to the Telegraph or the Times), but the Sun is the mostly apolitical paper for the undereducated. The Sun possesses political clout precisely because it's populist and doesn't really care about reporting what doesn't fit in with the mood of the people. The other reason why it has clout is that its readers intrinsically don't know or care much about politics and are therefore possibly more likely to vote as they are told by their esteemed provider of propaganda and cheap pictures of naked women. Well, that's my hypothesis anyway. You may say that the very fact that Murdoch owns it shows that it probably has a right-wing bias, but in my opinion this bias is transient, and ingrained in the owners, not in the newspaper, and probably not in the readers either, and this is shown by the fact that they have changed which party they favour a few times.

I agree that it would be an amazingly good thing if their weren't mad neoconservative media plutocrats twisting the government's arms, though, and pretending that they have the support of all these Sun readers (many of whom couldn't tell a mad neoconservative media plutocrat if they were staring them in the face) while they're at it. There are many things that Labour wants to do that it could do with restraining from, and the Lib Dems in coalition with it would make for a better government, in my opinion, than Labour alone, which clearly can't resist courting the Murdoch press.

 

[BCLG100]

I was pretty amazed by how obvious the bias was in the sun articles. But one question: don't most british people watch the BBC news? And isn't the BBC at least a bit impartial?

Supposedly its impartial but it is a bit left thinking in general.

The Sun isn't right wing! The Daily Mail is the right wing paper for the undereducated (as opposed to the Telegraph or the Times), but the Sun is the mostly apolitical paper for the undereducated. The Sun possesses political clout precisely because it's populist and doesn't really care about reporting what doesn't fit in with the mood of the people. The other reason why it has clout is that its readers intrinsically don't know or care much about politics and are therefore possibly more likely to vote as they are told by their esteemed provider of propaganda and cheap pictures of naked women. Well, that's my hypothesis anyway. You may say that the very fact that Murdoch owns it shows that it probably has a right-wing bias, but in my opinion this bias is transient, and ingrained in the owners, not in the newspaper, and probably not in the readers either, and this is shown by the fact that they have changed which party they favour a few times.

I'd say the sun is right wing in the sense that Mussolini was right wing; when they feel like it but they'll give anything a chance if it'll benefit them.

 

[Truronian]

Supposedly its impartial but it is a bit left thinking in general.

I'd agree were it not for Nick Robinson.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Newspapers here are horribly biased, particularly the tabloids. I imagine this is somewhat thanks to television news being pretty neutral... what are newspapers like in America where the TV news is mostly partisan opinion pieces?

For the most part? Biased, but the boring kind of biased.

Edited for elaboration: Right, so for example, around here theres four papers: The Post, The Times, Newday and the Wallstreet Journal.
The Post is blatantly biased from a conservative POV and populist, but blatantly bad. It's very much like The Daily Mail, except it has good sports coverage and is not regarded as a serious news outlet. It's interesting to me that in Britain 'Tabloid' is apparently a neutral term, while here it's a perjorative, and the post is universally regarded as a tabloid.

The Wall Street Journal has a pro-business angle, while on social matters, it really doesn't care. Or comment much. It's above all the paper of people who follow the Stock Market, and so it's a bit free-markety but less in a 'Healthcare is evil socialism' standpoint and more a charts and graphs way.

The New York Times is of course liberal on social issues. Again it's reflected by what it covers. The arts, book reviews, things like that, the Times dominates in coverage and so of course they love grants for things like that and so on. It's noticable, but not anymore then the BBC's slant. I'm socially very conservative, and I still find it the most reliable place to get my news.

Newsday is the local paper and unless you know much about local politics it's hard to tell their angle, other then obviously their inability to be concerned with anything as far as Queens County. They used to be an Anti-Republican Newspaper, but have recently attacked the Democratic Party, essentially making them the 'anti-county government' paper. Which is good, because our history of Machine Politics is some of the worst in the country.

Essentially I would say that from what I've seen, our Newspaper coverage is much better then Europe's and our Television Coverage is much worse. I suppose it's because we regard TV no matter what as entertainment, and therefor regard Newspapers as comparatively serious.

 

[BCLG100]

I'd agree were it not for Nick Robinson.

As if he doesn't hate everyone there, including himself.

 

[GinandTonic]

As if he doesn't hate everyone there, including himself.

Oh come now

A couple of weeks ago he was on newsnight and his report to kick off the debate between the politicos was more tory than the tory representitive. Tory chap looked embarrassed. When Lab launched their manifesto he was so rabidly tory that not only did the doctors in the hospital the launch was at jeer him but the press corp joined in and after the PM had laughed in his face and radio 5 cut back to the studio vic derbyshire was corpsing. Really he was such a rabid hack he managed to be laughed at for his hackery by doctors, politicos, the press, the PM and "bloke radio" in the space of 60 seconds. Since the Lib threat has emerged his hate has suddenly swung from Gordie to Nick.

The man is a disgrace to the BBC.

 

[BCLG100]

Oh come now

A couple of weeks ago he was on newsnight and his report to kick off the debate between the politicos was more tory than the tory representitive. Tory chap looked embarrassed. When Lab launched their manifesto he was so rabidly tory that not only did the doctors in the hospital the launch was at jeer him but the press corp joined in and after the PM had laughed in his face and radio 5 cut back to the studio vic derbyshire was corpsing. Really he was such a rabid hack he managed to be laughed at for his hackery by doctors, politicos, the press, the PM and "bloke radio" in the space of 60 seconds. Since the Lib threat has emerged his hate has suddenly swung from Gordie to Nick.

The man is a disgrace to the BBC.

I wasn't disagreeing but he can be seen as the powerful token in the left wing that is the BBC.

edit- 'left wing' is probably too strong, 'left leaning' might be more appropriate.

 

[Truronian]

The right wing papers this morning are pretty interesting:





The Sun has a "Clegg nervous about debate"-like headline, though I couldn't find an image.

Clearly they are going on an all out attack. Brown is no longer the main threat in their eyes. This seems likely to back fire horribly. What happens if/when Clegg comes out on top tonight, of even merely on a par? The papers are going to look foolish having predicted a glorious Cameron resurgence given Clegg is a immigrant-loving, nervous Nazi and are ultimately going to lose face amongst their readers, who apparently consider him on a level with Churchill. Of course, I might be giving tabloid readers a bit too much credit here...

Also, special edition Nick Clegg Mail headline generator!!!

 

[GinandTonic]

IS NICK CLEGG MAKING PROPERTY PRICES IMPOTENT?

 

[Shekwan]

I'm loving the Daily Mail-O-Matic.

I hope you're right Truronian, but perhaps its the polls that are getting it wrong? They are far from infallible and have made some bad forecasts in the past. Could the "Shy-Tory" factor be at play here?

I would tend to think not, what with the rise of internet polling (There doesn't seem to be all that much of a difference between internet pollsters like Yougov and the telephone ones) theres less reason for potential Tory voters to be unwilling to air their poltical views. But still, it should be an interesting test for that theory come election time.

 

[Mise]

A Guardian blog has a pic of the front pages: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/apr/22/general-election-2010



Bloody hilarious Who says politics is boring?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

The Sun is vile. Hardly anybody buys it on Merseyside though after the Hillsborough slurs.

 

[RedRalph]

The Sun is vile. Hardly anybody buys it on Merseyside though after the Hillsborough slurs.

I'm not surprised. It's a scummy rag.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

All things Murdoch are scummy. I will never get Sky telly either

I suppose Fox makes some good shows and movies though