How left wing papers help push people away from left wing politics

Imagine a new health and safety gone mad story started doing the rounds, but it was pretty obvious that the right wing papers were farting about to make things look more crazy than they were. Yeah, I know - you don't have to imagine it - but if there was a new one, how would you imagine the apparently left wing papers would handle it? The Guardian, after all, is responsible for publishing the excellent 'Conkers, goggles, 'elf 'n' safety? You really could make it up' in response to David Cameron blarting out a speech based on some of this cobblers.

Ian Tomlinson and the tabloids

At around 7.30pm on Wednesday 1 April, a man caught up in the G20 protests despite not bing a protester, died. The coverage of Ian Tomlinson's death laid bare the inadequacies of the popular press in dealing with events such as this. The main and most obvious failing is the over-reliance of the press on official accounts, but there were other factors at play that led to the pretty dismal reporting. This abysmal coverage would probably not have been challenged in the tabloids had the Guardian not released video on Tuesday of Mr Tomlinson being assaulted from behind shortly before his death. Here is the footage, which isn't very nice:

When churnalism and immigration scare stories collide

Here's the scenario. You are the PR person for a company who provides information - credit checks, market research, that sort of thing. Your company has recently helped produce a facility that allows people to track how popular their name is across the world, and you want to get coverage in the UK press. Your research shows that nine of the top ten most popular surnames in the UK have stayed in the same order of popularity for 100 years, and that all top ten names are British. How do you get a puff piece published?

Who rioted in Aylesbury? Muslims, Asians, or no one group in particular?

A riot? During Eid? Must be Muslims then.
Remember this? The Sun reported on how nasty Muslims had hounded brave soldiers out of their new home in Windsor, except it turned out they weren't Muslims. How about this? A disturbance in Windsor that ended up with a dairy owned by Muslims being firebombed was blamed by some papers (although not the Sun, curiously) as being the fault of the Muslims who had been firebombed?

The mother of all bad headlines

This makes me angry
There's this scene, in 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrells', where a big, scary looking geezer forces some poor sap's head in a drum full of water. 'Areyougunnapay?' he growls, as he pulls his gasping victim up out of the water, 'Areyougunnafahkinpay?' Before the guy even manages to get a full breath, let alone answer, his head is thrust back in as his arms flail uselessly about.

Why I don't start my own tabloid

Here's why I don't start my own tabloid newspaper or buy an existing one, in one easy to access post.

I'm not stinking filthy rich.

The end. Thanks for reading.

Not really.

Of course, I could have been filthy rich if I'd inherited an existing media empire from my father to build on, like Viscount Rothermere (Daily Mail) and Rupert Murdoch (who now owns The Sun, The Times and many more), but I didn't, so that route's not open to me.

I'm not sure I have the instincts and lack of principles necessary to become filthy stinking rich, as I might have to do something like become a pornographer, selling magazines like Penthouse, Big Ones and Asian Babes and owning satellite channels like Television X that promise pervy viewers hardcore action but offer nothing of the sort because that's illegal. That clearly didn't bother Richard Desmond (Daily Express, The Star) who did just that before buying his papers, and still owns Television X and Red Hot TV. I wouldn't have the same lack of principles to allow me to donate £100,000 to the Labour Party like Desmond either. Whether I was going to produce a paper that takes every opportunity to slam the Labour party or not.

If I were filthy stinking rich, that might change the way I look at the world and make me tempted to produce a newspaper that protects the interests of the filthy, stinking rich by - oh, I don't know - publishing articles that attack people on benefits as scroungers while completely ignoring the amount of money lost to the economy by very rich people indeed owning very large companies indeed registering their tax details overseas to rob the economy of far more very year than cheated from the exchequer by benefit cheats.

I might get the idea that the main aim of owning a newspaper is to sell as many copies as possible to attract as much money as possible from advertisers, because no paper could keep afloat without advertising revenue. This might make me and my editor reluctant to print news that attacks large corporations that provide a large chunk of revenue.

I might then hire only editors with a similar worldview as mine, favouring maintaining a system that benefits the stinking filthy rich like me. Those editors might deliberately produce articles they know to be untrue, even if the paper they're editing is supposed to be left-wing. Like Roy Greenslade, former editor of the Daily Mirror who has since apologised for producing inflammatory and untrue stories about Arthur Scargill during the miner's strike.

They might decide to 'crusade' for the abolition of the inheritance tax - a tax that applies to the richer people in society - in favour of cutting benefit payments to the poorest, for example. This would be especially ironic if I'd inherited the beginnings of my media empire from my father.

Since my editors shared my view of the purpose of publishing a newspaper, we might decide that we should sell as many copies as possible regardless of whether what's in it is newsworthy or even true, especially if we got it into our heads that everyone thinks a certain way and wants to hear certain things.

My editor might prioritise reflecting the view of the paper's readership over everything else. Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, in last year's Cudlipp Lecture, said:

At their best, popular papers – that are far more sensitive than politicians and opinion polls to national moods - articulate the anxieties, apprehensions and aspirations of their readers. Genuinely democratic – I mean, you try persuading people to fork out 45p for a paper on a rainy day - they give voice to millions of ordinary people who don’t have a voice.

But what if evidence emerged that suggested public opinion on a subject was wrong? If my editor was anything like Paul Dacre, they would decide to ignore that evidence, or pretend it said the opposite to what it actually did since it's more important to him to reflect his readers' opinions than tell them the truth.

Not to be outdone, Peter Hill, editor of the Daily Express, in an interview with the Independent, said:

My job is to sell the Daily Express. My job isn't anything else. My job is to produce newspapers that people want to read and I can tell you that people want to read about the Diana conspiracy because the figures tell me that they do, seriously tell me that they do.

If my editor were like that, he might decide to go with headlines that will be likely to sell rather than be newsworthy, or even true. If he thought the purpose of his job were to sell my newspaper and he decided people wanted to read anti-immigration stories he'd give them anti-immigration stories whether they were accurate or not.

And as to what Sun readers actually want, Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor and current columnist of the Sun, is infamous for apparently saying:

You just don't understand the readers, do you, eh? He's the bloke you see in the pub, a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he's afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and the weirdoes and drug dealers. He doesn't want to hear about that stuff (serious news).

He's also infamous for producing articles attacking the Liverpool fans at the Hillsborough disaster that turned out to be untrue. Presumably because that's what he thought his readers wanted to hear.

Even if I ran a left-wing paper, my editor might be tempted to run stories without adequate checks, and we'd end up publishing photos of soldiers mistreating prisoners in Iraq that turned out to be fraudulent, because we thought it was more important to tell or readers what they wanted to hear than make sure we were telling the truth.

We'd then get into a weird chicken-and-egg scenario where I was producing newspapers that I thought reflected the views of my readers but couldn't be sure if my readers thought those things because they'd read the distorted stories in my paper of if they'd just absorbed them like osmosis. I'd be under pressure to produce stories about how left wingers want to ban Christmas, say, but because nobody's trying to ban Christmas I'd have to rely on repeating old urban legends, or pretending that things done at Christmas for health and safety reasons were actually done so people are not offended.

I'd be even more tempted to ignore or misreport new evidence because I didn't think my readers wanted to hear it. I'd be so desperate for any validation of what I thought my readers wanted that I'd use information sources that aren't really robust and wouldn't in the past have been worthy of press coverage. These sources would be encouraged to carry on doing what they were doing because papers like mine used them and we'd get caught in a feedback loop with people believed stuff that isn't striclty true because they read it in my paper, which led to my paper producing more stuff that isn't actually true because I thought that was what my readers wanted and on and on forever and ever.

It isn't actually true that all new jobs since 2004 went to migrants. It isn't actually true that Birmingham City Council has renamed Christmas 'Winterval'. It wasn't actually true that Muslim yobs ran brave soldiers out of their home. It isn't actually true that research showed that 50% of Poles wanted to stay in the UK for life. I could go on. The more people who read this kind of tripe, the more people will believe it. This will have an effect on the way they vote, and the way hey treat each other.

So why don't I attack the left wing papers on this blog? Because they're not as dangerous. They don't sell nearly as many papers and don't reach nearly as many people. If a large number of people think there are too many migrants in Britain and that idea is pushed by the right wing tabloids, it matters if those sources of information aren't telling the truth. Also, when I do look at them, they're more guilty of parroting stuff that's appeared in the right wing press than being guilty of their own howlers, so I don't look at them often. I have limited time here. And I have even less of a responsibility to be impartial than any newspaper.

'Tis the season

It's a month and a half before Christmas and we all know what that means. It's ban Christmas scare story time in the papers - praise the Lord! It's been quietly underway for a little while now, as far as I can tell starting with the Mail first moaning about how towns are putting their Christmas decorations up too early and then moaning that towns are being banned from putting up decorations.

The latest story about evil liefties seems to start in a story in last Wednesday's Daily Mail 'Christmas should be 'downgraded' to help race relations says Labour think tank'. The story is about a yet to be published IPPR report. Curiously none of the quotes from the report in the article actually use the word 'downgrade', and the only place it appears is the headline. As we know from previous tabloid headlines, we know that the quotes here mean nothing. Remember 'Migrant surge led to 'disorder and crime'', and 'Muslims: 'Ban non-Islamic schools'?

The closest the article comes is this:

"Even-handedness dictates that we provide public recognition to minority cultures and traditions.

"If we are going to continue as a nation to mark Christmas - and it would be very hard to expunge it from our national life even if we wanted to - then public organisations should mark other religious festivals too."

So, nothing about downgrading, just a call that public organisations should mark other religious festivals. I had bookmarked this to blog about when the IPPR study was published, but via Pickled Politics, it seems that other papers are already picking up on the story, and we can follow how one of these urban legends spread.

The first of the right wing papers to pick up the story after the Mail is the Express, with 'PC plans to 'downgrade' Christmas', which appears the day after the Mail version appeared online. It's basically a rehash of the Mail's version. The word 'downgrade' only appears in the headline. It includes some quotes that don't appear in the Mail article, but nothing about downgrading Christmas. Curiously, it claims the report was published that day. It's nowhere on the IPPR website that I can find.

The Sun weighs in on the same day and, like any good distributor of urban legends, embelleshes things further with 'Bid to ban Christmas cheer' which steps things up to include a ban now. It opens:

BRITAIN should SCRAP official Christmas celebrations to boost race relations, it is being claimed.

There are no direct quotes from the report in the story about Christmas being scrapped or banned. It's the first article to mention Winterval, pretending that:

Some towns have already rebranded Christmas as Winterval to avoid religious offence.

Yeah, right.

It takes a couple of days for the story to reach the Telegraph, and on the 4th, the paper goes with 'Scrap Christmas, says New Labour think tank', which picks up on the capital SCRAP from the Sun's coverage. It includes no direct quotes from the IPPR report that don't appear elsewhere, and no direct quotes mentioning downgrading, scrapping or banning anything. This one is the first Christmas story I've seen this year to mention the very funny report about 74% of businesses banning Christmas decorations that was spread by an employment law firm, who'd profit nicely from businesses who read the reports and contacted it for advice. Expect more references to that this year.

The Times covers it on a couple of days later, but only on an opinion page from Minette Marin. It's the wonderfully headlined 'Let’s stop pretending all faiths are equal'. Of course there aren't any quotes that don't appear elsewhere, and no quotes from the IPPR report saying Christmas should be downgraded, scrapped or banned. It includes a brilliant quote saying:

What I want, passionately, is for the state to keep away from my children and let me decide for my family what to do about Christmas (or indeed Eid or Sukkot or Diwali). I don’t want the state interfering with ancient customs, expunging Christmas or punging something else in its place.

which shows that Marin presumably does want Christmas downgraded, since the state enshrines her right to have time off to celebrate it in law. It mentions Winterval, too.

So, cue the liberal elite, stepping in to point out that the report isn't published yet and that none of the quotes say that Christmas should be downgraded, scrapped or banned, right? Right?

Not really.

The Guardian kicks things off on 1 November in 'Come all ye faithful'. This one does only mention celebrating other religious festivals and doesn't mention downgrading, scrapping or banning anything, but it doesn't challenge the idea that anyone's called to ban anything.

Ally Fogg follows up on the 4th, with 'A gift for the tabloids', which does include caveats about waiting for the report to be published, but does seem to take the suggestion that the report says that Christmas should be downgraded at face value, and concludes:

So how depressing to discover that a supposedly liberal thinktank has shunted us right back to square one. And how ironic that it has done so in pursuit of tolerance.

Suffice to say the IPPR is well and truly struck off my Winterval card list.

Fogg does include links to last years two superb Oliver Burkeman articles about banning Christmas, but seems not to have learned the lesson from it of taking anything in the papers about banning Christmas at face value.

One of Fogg's sources is 'Think-tank: 'Mark all religious festivals'', which is the best of the lot. It includes nothing about downgrading, scrapping or banning anything, and does only mention that the report says public institutions should mark other religious festivals. It doesn't say that the marking of them should be on the same level as Christmas. It doesn't contradict the other stories directly, but it was one of the earliest to appear, on the 1st.

It's a pity that Carol Malone hadn't read the Independent before writing 'Out of their Xmas tree', which is the sort of quality we'd expect from Malone. Here, the story takes a different tack with its hyperbole, blaming the pretend idea that Christmas should be downgraded on the government this time. Top notch.

So, in a few short steps, think tank says public organisations should mark other religious celebrations becomes Christmas should be downgraded, banned or scrapped and the diktat is coming from the government. Sweet.

I'll revisit this when the IPPR report does get published. Here's a prediction: it won't say anything should be downgraded, scrapped or banned. I doubt it'll even say that other festivals should be marked with the same prominence as Christmas.

And even if it does say that other festivals should be celebrated as prominently as Christmas, there's something nasty about interpreting that to mean Christmas is being downgraded. About saying that other religions are inferior to Christianity, as the Times article clearly suggests.

Another one for the mythology, I think. Of course, big crow is on the menu for me if it isn't, but I'm dead confident that the report doesn't say Christmas should be downgraded, scrapped or banned. I've seen too many other reports covered by the Mail to believe that.

No, really - any colour you like . .

More about the Begum case. Woo hoo!

Over the weekend, the papers weighed in with their columnists' comments. Guess what? They were dirty pants!

Firstly, Fiona Phillips in the Mirror. She finds Begum threatening - but she doesn't tell us why until the end. But the column from the top:

"Although I would argue that if my son wanted to wear his Chelsea kit to class because football's his religion, I'm sure there'd be repercussions."

This argument is so dumb I have to read it in a comedy thick bloke voice in my head. Two points:

1. Football's not a religion. No really, it's not.
2. Fiona's son presumably doesn't go to a school where all football kits except Chelsea's are allowed.

"Clearly, though, her brother does. Shabina dug her heels in over her uniform after being counselled by a radical Muslim group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, to which her brother belongs."

One does not necessarily lead to the other. That's confusing correlation with causation. Shabina Begum may have been told what to do by her brother, or she may not. That her brother belongs to the radical organisation that helped with the case does not mean he tells her what to do. It may well be the case, but it is not 'clear'.

"And when Shabina was pushed on a question, she didn't seem to know her own mind - looking to her barrister to answer. That's what I found threatening."

You found it threatening that before going into court, someone would consult their barrister before answering a question from a journalist relating to the case? Then you're an eejit.

Now Carol Malone in the Sunday Mirror. She uses the same arguments we've heard before, but starts by couching them as an attack against a stroppy schoolgirl rather than a shadowy organisation of baddies. Until the end, when she couches it as an attack against a shadowy organisation of baddies.

"Not only is this a vindication for the headmistress of Luton's Denbigh High school, Yasmin Bevan - who is herself a Muslim, yet who refused to bow to politicallycorrect pressure to let this attention-seeking little madam have her way."

Doesn't matter if the Headmistress is a Muslim or not. She clearly doesn't interpret Islam in the same way as Begum, which is the issue. Malone would probably be sensitive to sectarian divisions between Catholics and Protestants, but not Muslims. To deviate from one interpretation of Islam means you're evil.

"I'm sorry. but if Shabina Begum wanted to wear a jilbab she should have shoved off to the school down the road which would have allowed her to do exactly that."

You should be sorry. And - if black people in the Deep South of the 50s and 60s wanted to eat at a lunch counter, they should have shoved off to eat at a black establishment. Sounds nasty when you put it that way, doesn't it?

"But no, backed by her brother and an extremist Muslim organisation, Hizbut- Tahrir, she preferred to spend £100,000 - none of it hers obviously - just so she could get her own way."

Like I said before - you can make this either side's fault if you want.

"When Yasmin Bevan banned Shabina from wearing a jilbab she did it only after full consultation with the local Muslim community, which was pretty damned responsible of her and more than she actually needed to do."

And if you consulted the local Christian community in a Catholic area of Northern Ireland about what is acceptable for Christians to do, it won't exactly be friendly to Protestants. And of course, they're marvellously integrated in their schools over there. A beacon of how things should happen across Britain.

"And as her school already allowed Muslim girls to wear head scarf, tunic and trousers she was right to believe that was enough."

And you can have any colour you like. As long as it's black.

The next two paragraphs are startlingly self-contradictory. I love them to pieces.

"she needs to learn that in Britain rules and respect are a damn sight more important than what you wear. [. . .] If she doesn't like her school's uniform, it's simple - go to another school."

The rules here are about what you wear. If what you wear isn't important - why are there rules about - what you wear? Jesus! The contorted logic of this argument is amazing.

"Similarly if she doesn't like the rules here in Britain - one of the most liberal, tolerant countries in the world - and if she doesn't think we adequately allow her to express her religious beliefs she's perfectly at liberty to go and live in a country that does."

One of the reasons Britain is one of the most liberal countries in the world is because its citizens are at liberty to express ourselves as we want, you bonehead. Saying, 'if you don't like it, fuck off,' is harldy indicative of a liberal attitude. That we usually don't is why you think of us as one of the most liberal countries in the world in the first place.

The next paragraph just slags off Afghanistan, which is irrelevant. Like I said before - tu quoque fallacy, that is. Just because people have it worse somehwere else doesn't mean it's right to restrict people's freedom here. Next!

"She's also too selfish to see that had she won her right to wear the jilbab it would have put enormous pressure on other young Muslim girls to wear it - even if they didn't want to."

[Bangs head on desk repeatedly] - you're arguing that young Muslim girls shouldn't be pressured into wearing something they don't want to wear by saying they should be made to wear something they don't want to wear! The argument wouldn't fall over any easier if its legs were made of jelly. Jelly that hasn't set properly and has gone all sloppy.

"Her militant supporters, however, are much more sinister. They've used this silly, impressionable young woman as a battering ram to show they're powerful enough to rattle the walls of British institutions."

Make your mind up! Is she an attention seeking little madam, or is she a silly, impressionable young woman. On what basis do you suggest that Begum is being used? Or silly and impressionable? Where's your evidence? There isn't any. You just think she must be because her views differ from yours. How arrogant is that? Perhaps her supporters are extremist. Perhaps we should disagree with a lot of what they have to say, but in attacking them and calling Begum names you're doing nothing more than chucking out pathetic ad-hominems.

"But the real tragedy here is that because of this case - which should never have been taken to the Appeal Court in the first place - this young woman, who wanted to be a doctor, has now missed two vital years of education, and now can't be. Which of course will suit her militant backers whose greatest fear must be smart, feisty, educated women."

Clearly not, as they've been fighting for two years to get her allowed back into school to study to become a doctor. And she can still study to be a doctor if she wants. They're called 're-takes'.

It's a short hop to here from the old racist arguments of yesteryear. If they don't like it, they can fuck off. We have rules here. Don't get uppity. You got a chip on your shoulder, son? Begum is portrayed as either an upstart or a victim - which dovetails nicely with the stereotypical images we have of Muslims in this country. Simultaneously arrogant and nasty, and cowed and oppressed. It's pathetic.