Polly on the Press

All Hail hTe Grindaua!

The malevelovence of the media

At least she's entirely correct here:

The newspaper agenda, slavishly followed by the BBC, reflects a profoundly dystopic image of a society where nothing works, everything gets worse, public officials are inept, public services fail, tax is wasted, lethal dangers proliferate, and everyone conspires to lie about it.

Although it rather destroys her thesis that there's something wrong with the way that newspapers report. That is indeed an accurate picture of modern Britain, so what's to complain about?

If only the internet had become the promised antidote to the media, a better forum for unmediated exchange of ideas and information. But its prevailing tone is even wilder. Strident, mostly male rightwing cynics, haters and wild conspiracy theorists deter more reasonable participants.

Thanks for the name check there Poll, I do so enjoy being mentioned in the papers.

However, there's one huge thing that Ms. Toynbee has managed to miss. It's really a rather important thing too. Polly's assumption is that it is a right wing bias in the press which creates a right wing bias in the population. This is of course possible, although it's an odd view of how markets work. A more likely scenario, as with all other businesses, is that the press is chasing the already extant biases of the population. So which is it? As I've noted earlier elsewhere, it's actually the latter.

Contrary to the simple explanation that media bias is driven by the personal predilections of proprietors or journalists, they argue that media slant emerges mainly as a result of outlets trying to tailor their news reporting to consumers’ prior beliefs.

So, bang goes the central part of her thesis:

Here's an example of its influence: an overwhelmingly rightwing bias helps explain why Eurobarometer finds the British the least sympathetic of EU nations towards the poor, more likely to blame them for laziness.

It isn't because the press is right wing that we think the unemployed are workshy shiftless chavs, the press is right wing because we already think that the unemployed are workshy shiftless chavs.

I agree, something of a problem if you're the Columnist of the Year and want to move the country in a more social democratic direction but it's the populace that is the problem, not the press. Have to do a Brecht and elect a new people, eh?