I am not trying to start a political debate (I really mean that), but this story I saw shared on Facebook & Twitter this morning has made my blood boil.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3069464/How-vote-tactically-Red-Ed-Constituency-constituency-guide-50-key-seats-help-Labour-Number-10.html
The fact the Daily Mail have ran this story this is the reason the media needs regulating. Hugely nefarious of them to do this & try to push their political view on to their huge readership. I know that we may all disagree on who to vote for & I respect that, it is every individuals choice. However, the media being abused in this way is shocking and really stinks to me.
Sorry, rant over!!
I suspect that the Daily Express’s support of UKIP has not only cost them a lot of readers, but also a huge loss in advertising revenue.
The *entire purpose* of the Mail and the Express (and others) is to further a political cause. It’s not abuse, it’s use. Don’t give them eyeball time.
All the newspapers take a view. Who will decide what the right political line they should take is? The incumbent government? The Twitterari? I suspect the line they take is broadly in line with their readers rather than the other way round.
I don’t believe that readers dictate content, I think it’s very much the other way round.
The political line is decided by the owner(s), in whose ultimate interest each respective paper is run. They’ll take the line which benefits them the most, and they’ll drag their readers along with them.
This is a big part of the reason that Ed Miliband has taken such an absolute kicking over the last few weeks – he’s in favour of press reform.
Indeed. Mail readers are generally “minds made up” anyway, whatever argument may be put forward. Most of the dailies have a clear political allegiance. Some even change theirs now and again.
An interesting thing about Mail readers is that from the public comments there is a very large pro-UKIP / anti-Cameron/LibLabCon block that goes against the Mail’s UKIP stance.
Back to the OP, “the media” isn’t a sacred State asset, the Mail is a commercial product and they can pretty much do what they want, within the law, much as I despise them. As has been said, their readership will have already made their minds up.
State regulated media’s not the answer, is it? Better to have a variety of viewpoints and the ability to choose your sources of opinion – which is what Daily Mail readers do
Absolutely spot on.
I suspect what the newspapers say, all of them left and right, will have very little effect on how people will vote tomorrow. They haven’t got used to the fact that they are no longer the opinion formers they once were.
The fact that The Mail calls Milliband – a pretty centrist politician – ‘Red Ed’ is symptomatic of how puerile and hysterical political debate in Britain has become. There was a good piece in the Guardian this morning by George Monbiot about how the media have completely controlled the political narrative in the run up to this election. But really, is there any British paper worth reading these days? I can’t get over how trashy the Telegraph has become. It’s always been right wing, but it was once a sober, reliable, responsible paper. Now it just seems obsessed with bigging up the property boom, celebrity gossip and tedious rants of climate change denier Christopher Booker.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/05/election-issues-media-ignoring-nation-arrested-development
Read Private Eye to get an idea of the woeful goings on at the Telegraph. It is now a rag whereas at one stage they had a good number of very fine journalists who worth reading irrespective of your own political standpoint.
These days, it’s less the paper, more the odd columnist who is worth reading and Nick Cohen is the best I can think of right now.
“had” is the operative word. They’ve all either been sacked or have fucked off before they could be sacked.
It’s no different I think to Russell Brand recommending a vote for Labour purely as a tactical move to stop the Conservatives getting the most seats. I’m not saying that the Daily Mail’s piece is OK, but given who they are and who they represent – it’s not too surprising.
I think Brand’s move is pissing off the more hardline activists who attach themselves to him as a figurehead. This isn’t a bad thing – the hard left can be just as oppressive and bullying as their Tory counterparts.
A free press means the Mail gets to print stuff you don’t like or agree with, and the fact it’s making your blood boil is simply hard cheese.
Do you really want some sort of state comptroller deciding what’s fit to be printed? The only regimes that do this are not ones I’d choose to live under.
I think the Mail is a nasty, bullying, little rag but the freedom of expression it hides behind is the same freedom that lets other people print things that I happen to feel more sympathy with.
Yes, the press have behaved appallingly at times, and where laws have potentially been broken there should be prosecutions. And the libel laws certainly need reform.
But what you call regulation, I’d see as restricting important freedoms.
Out of interest, why is it always assumed that the only alternative to the status quo is vastly overreaching, Stalinist state control of the press?
Is there not some room between the two? Or does reform of any sort constitute a slippery slope which will inevitably lead us to some Orwellian nightmare?
Nearly every regular consumer of the Mail or Express I’ve ever talked to about their choice of newspaper (not many I admit) always and I mean always remark that they only buy it because they like the crossword. That they are card carrying true blue Tories who are terrified of absolutely everything that isn’t exactly like them and distinctly paranoid about the dire consequences for them if forced to live in a more equitable society has absolutely nothing to do with their choice of newspaper. It’s the crossword. Just the crossword.
I’ve a few cross words I’d like to share with them.
Arf!
Very true, my late mother in law, a Good Person by any measure, bought the Daily Mail every day for the quiz page. But increasingly she’d talk about how immigrants were given mansions in Hampstead to live in….osmosis is a dangerous thing.
My late mum used to buy the Excess. It made her laugh a lot.
As far as I know, she was a lifelong Labour voter.
I heard mention of this on the review of the papers, this morning on R4’s Today. The Mirror is doing a similar thing.
I can’t imagine these features in either paper is going to have the slightest impact on the outcome tomorrow.
I can’t remember who said it (possibly Evelyn Waugh) – but I’ve always found the following hard to refute – paraphrasing , obviously
‘ the purpose of a newspaper is to propogate the prejudices of its’ owner as much as possible without alienating the advertisers’
True for Rothermere & true for all the others as far as I can see.
The purpose of the commercial press, which by and large loses money hand over fist, is to terrorise weak politicians enough that they surrender commercial advantages in other areas to the proprietors. Media monopolies and the catastrophic effects on sport are left alone though clearly public interests are affected. Money lost on the witless red tops is therefore money well spent and probably deductible.
This is all the NoW was in the end – a machine for gathering information to use to blackmail public servants.
Regarding the tactical voting business – the Tory press is absolutely terrified of any sort of regulation and will do and say anything it takes. This is the worst election in our lifetimes but if you go back a bit further the press were even worse in the 18th and 19th century. And its the 18th century we’re headed to.
PS I think the Dependent or the Graun did a similar guide to oust Tory MPs. Rough game.
“it’s the 18th Century we’re headed to.”
Oh for crying out loud; you idealist loony left types make me laugh, always arriving at a ridiculously over-optimistic conclusion. Smell the coffee!
We’re headed back before the peasant’s revolt, back to the 14th Century at least, and then we’ll have a further time shift to look forward to when our civilisation finally collapses in the face of the global caliphate and we all go back to the 7th Century.
Has Paul Kantner built those star-ships yet? I’m up for emigration.
Welcome back, long time no see Forks.
That is so weird. While you were writing this I was just dipping into my modest Paul Kantner collection,and selected Sunfighter ahead of Blows Against the Empire and Baron von Tollboth. This is too freaky to be mere coincidence. Could it be the portent of a Green landslide?
I for one welcome our periwigged overlords.
God fave ye Kinge!
He’s BACK! Only the legendary Faux Geordie could claim that control of the means of communication is going back to where it was 300 years ago… in an uncensored, instantly published message that can be freely read by billions of people across the world.
No
I diddn’t.
I said that the press was riotouss and disgraceful and corrupt in many ways as it was in the 18th century, which is a place we are headed on a number of counts. Emperors and slaves. I’ve been saying it since 2007 too.
Looting! Looting I say! Plunder!
This is why I gave up to be honest
Welcome to The Afterword where a bunch of people know each other’s musical likes and dislikes/political leanings/idiosyncrasies/beliefs well enough to know which buttons to press to piss on their chips, forever! Actually it’s not that bad, mostly it’s a lot of fun. But you know , it can be a bit. Sometimes. Niggly.
No it can’t.
Just saving you some typing Faux. I mean, they all hate us, and the deal has been done, NHS – fucked, BBC – fucked. Etc.
😉
You really have saved me the bother actually
Emperors and slaves! Emperors and slaves!
Cheesus I presume. Well you are going to have to add the Pope and the governor of the bank of england to your list of boring predictable leftie c***s.
What I sad would happen, has.
Billions? I’d better chip in a bit more for the server cost then!
I said the could read it… it didn’t say they’d want to
Yo Faux! There’s been a big FG shaped hole in the Afterword site, and now its gone.
You can be my “pair” today. If we both agree not to vote that means I can go fishing.
Hi mate
No way I am not voting. Not sure about coming back to this place though, god knows I don’t mind piss taking but being jeered at is different. Catch a big one.