Why then were you making the case for them exercising some sort of simple, almost objective editorial judgement? They are commercial enterprises, but odd ones. Their profitability is often marginal, their commitment to a point of view is just as strong. That wouldn’t be the case if they were making widgets.
I don't really understand your point. I was precisely saying that they were making a judgement about what they thought would sell best/generate most clicks. That doesn't preclude the fact that they have a particular political perspective of course and I agree that that is a factor here, but there are other reasons for the choices which were made. The fact of the matter is, as Sydney suggests, most people aren't that interested in parliamentary arithmetic. And the big story happened days ago, when Johnson resigned.
The News is also The News. That’s why it has a special cultural place, gets its own spot on Breakfast TV and has its own review shows. It has a regulator because it’s important. It sort of has a duty to report ‘the news’. This all kicked off because I wrote that one might expect the formal banning of Boris Johnson, who won a landslide three years ago, from Parliament to be a bit of a thing. You know why it isn’t and I don’t know why you need to correct such a modest observation. There is no doubting the role the Tory press plays by underplaying the Ruling Class’s Party’s failures and in this case, savage splits. It’s not just a simple choice of which story is going to shift the paper.
Just because something is not on the front page doesn't mean it isn't reported. The most important news story isn't always the one given the most prominence because newspapers want to draw people in. I'm not 'correcting' your observation, I am merely pointing out that an editorial choice is driven by a number of factors and I can fully understand why the choice was a different one in this instance. Had the Titanic story, which pushes loads of buttons, not surfaced yesterday (boom boom) it might well have been different. I'm really not sure why you are getting in such a lather about it
It would not have been different. They would have promoted another story, probably the cat, teacher gender ID nonsense above it. That’s the point, that’s how they roll. Putting aside your very obvious projection, I’m happy to call it a day there.
Well if you say so but we will never know, will we? I'd have been surprised if it hadn't featured more prominently in the Telegraph, at least.
It's normalising, that's why. The role of the Telegraph, Mail and, to an extent, the Times is to minimise, or at least normalise, these things so that the general public's reaction is less extreme than it might be. If they can somehow make out that the opposition has been 'just as bad' they will take that opportunity too. Remember that Starmer having a beer in an office was given several front pages. It's not purely news-tasting that leads to these decisions. A PM with a whacking majority misled the House, and by extension, the public but that is inconvenient for the right-leaning press. Yes, there's a case to be made that the public already knows all this, but the newspapers long ceased to be about purely informing the public. They see themselves as setting the agenda when it suits them. The choice of the Titanic story is a classic case of choosing what's interesting to the public over what is in the public interest, and it happens daily to such an extent that we barely notice. It's always happened to a degree, of course. But the newspapers are in a worse state than I've ever known them – just foghorns for their proprietors at this point but influential to our wider media and some sections of society in much the same way Japanese knotweed can be influential to house prices.
Really? The newspapers are in a worse state now than when the Sun 'won it' in 1992 with "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights"? I really don't see any palpable difference between now and then. In fact, if anything, the situation is much better today because there is a much greater plurality of media choices.
That’s somewhat offset by the fantastic amplification of newspaper opinion available to it through social media and also because the UK has been ruthlessly cleaved into opposing factions, especially by Brexit, who can be easily targeted. The Telegraph story about the teacher scolding the pupil for denying self ID was shared a phenomenal amount by the usual cnuts yesterday. The reach was something the Telegraph could only have dreamt of in 1992. I’m not sure what that plurality really looks like from an objective standpoint. It seems to me what people hear could be less diverse now, with a distinct lack of any semblance of National unifying discourse.
Back in 1992, the Times, the Telegraph and even the Mail were relatively sane, rational outlets. Yes, they were right-leaning but they were interested in truth. Using The Sun as the barometer tends to back up the point that the rest of the press has become shoutier and more partisan over the intervening 30 years.
And anyway, The Sun was the one that said they won it. Political scientists will argue that the thing that turned things most against Kinnock was his 'we're alright!' speech at a Sheffield rally a week before the election. Polls shifted after that was shown on the TV news. There was a great BBC doc about it a few years back.
Dunno... Labour faces wrath of UK media bosses by opposing repeal of regulation rule Government plans to abolish section 40 law under which news publishers are liable for libel trial legal costs
Hopefully in the wake of the Huw Edwards "scandal" one of the most egregious people on Britain gets his come-uppance. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1679240800310382593.html
I’m sure that’s all fine but I have absolutely no idea who he is, and I am sure Sun readers also will not.
I think we all can imagine what the intersection in the Venn diagram of "Sun Readers" and "regular viewers of the UK's angertainment TV channels" looks like.
The Dan Wootton story has surfaced… https://bylinetimes.com/2023/07/17/...in-cash-for-sexual-images-catfishing-scandal/
Incompetence or corruption? Or both? https://twitter.com/MarinaPurkiss/status/1681940609227956225?t=Q6sSd4CmxI2tRMTSqkYgjQ&s=19
Here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/play/competitions/200000-free-national-trust-family-29765694 (I only know because I read about it on moneysavingexpert last night and found a friendlier link.
At first glance you might think that bankrupt councils are mainly those run by "progressive" parties. However, you need to look a bit deeper - the green (sic) Lib Dem label for Woking should really be blue. The previous Tory council ran up a huge gambling debt and got kicked out by the Lib Dems at the last election. Six of the seven councils on the map went "bankrupt" in the last 5 years, the seventh (Hackney) dates back 23 years to 2000 - not sure it is really that relevant. In my view there should be 3 blue labels and 3 red ones..... "Provided by the Daily Mail"
