Bloody Hell – Our National Press is a Mess!
So, I took some time off from tech reporting/blogging this weekend, slowly typing out my thoughts on the General Election.
My initial idea was to do something similar to what I wrote in 2017 – just a simple piece about which way I was going to vote and why. But there is something else more critical to me here, that I really need to get off my chest. Something that I think that transcends political divisions, and which we can all agree on...
With no better way of saying it, our national media has been a fucking shambles during this election.
Let’s take the most recent example. After a harrowing photo surfaced of a child, Jack Williment-Barr, sleeping on the floor of a hospital in Leeds, due to overcrowding at the A&E unit, a lot of events transpired.
Boris Johnson began by refusing to look at the picture during to an interview (to the point where he took a reporter’s phone off him – check out my tweet of the video below). This led to Secretary of State for Health & Social Care, Matt Hancock, being sent to that hospital to “sort things out.”
During this visit, Labour activists had gathered to give him a piece of their mind about the austerity measures and how they’re affecting the NHS, when the video of the incident clearly showed a cyclist pointing and one of Hancock’s advisers walking into his hand.
Got all that? Good. Turns out the national media didn’t, as they (including the BBC) were quick to take the word of “senior Tories” and report that said adviser had been “punched in the face” by a “Labour thug.”
As you can tell from BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg’s tweet, this seemed to be an iron clad, black-and-white story that absolutely happened. No mention of words like “allegedly” or “senior Conservative source says,” to give yourself some wiggle room until you see something confirmatory beyond what your source from one side of a political divide says, who (crazy theory) might be lying to you to get a good story out of it.
And then the video emerges, and this becomes the clearest example of a smear out there...
I’m not even a real journalist – didn't get the qualifications, my predominant contribution is sourcing the best tech deals for people and, let’s be honest, blogs aren’t journalism. But even with that, I still feel some accountability to the words I write and the importance of having all the facts before publishing.
That’s “journalism 101,” which has protected me from legal action against the likes of the writer of Power Rangers or the CEO of X-Gamer supplements (both long stories that I’d rather not get into here).
It’s what has protected Andrew Neil from so much of the criticism of his leader's interviews. While many Labour supporters will try to find any way to criticise his pitbull style of grilling Corbyn, I’m actually in support of it. Truly uncomfortable viewing, but this is the kind of political probing (through discourse – get your mind out the gutter) that the public deserves.
But Boris’ camp did not agree to an interview, which led the BBC through three key events:
They made a pledge that Boris may not be interviewed by Andrew Marr unless he agrees to Andrew Neil. Two very different interviewing styles, the former being slightly softer.
Following the terrorist attack, they rescinded on that pledge and let Boris Johnson be interviewed by Marr – providing him a platform to politicise and blame Labour for the terrorist attack.
Now (spoiler alert) that interview with Andrew Neil is not going to happen because there’s no impetus to do so.
The Conservative’s plan goes without the vicious scrutiny of all of the other leaders’ manifestoes, forming a bias that could have very easily been solved by just confirming all the interviews before recording/airing anything.
This sort of repeated disinformation has an impact – not only does it broadly damage the trust someone has in the very thing they pay for to be free of any bias, but speaking personally, they harm what has been a two-decade long passion for me to get into this field. I thought there was an element of nobility to this field, but now it's obvious that’s all been stripped away, and we’re left with a system of journalism as horrifying as America.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wear a tin foil hat here and believe there’s a mess of political puppet strings behind the doors of the beeb. Owen Jones pulls up some interesting factual links between the Conservative party hierarchy and the BBC’s political coverage (you can listen to him speaking about this to Radio 5 Live below). I don’t believe the connection is as “on-the-head" as that – they were all proven to be good at their work in media and communications, so they have been given jobs within that field.
The truth about the Tories and the BBC. pic.twitter.com/fUhuVojfpQ
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) December 1, 2019
However, I do believe that whether through conscious or subconscious biases, or through some seriously dumbfounded decisions that the highest-ranking journalists of this country should not be making, the press has become a campaigning arm of the Conservative party.
From privately owned news organisations, fair play. They know their audience and how to spark the biggest emotional response on the front page. But from a public broadcasting service like the BBC – something we all part with our own hard-earned money to pay for – we deserve something impartial. We deserve a truly objective view with all sides of a political spectrum represented and scrutinised equally.
Instead, we have a Prime Minister evading scrutiny and a corporation uncritically sharing Conservative party lines.
We deserve better than this.
Well, rather than finish on a divisive note, I thought I’d say three things that we can all agree on. Because after an election campaign that has brought out the ugly divisiveness of the people and our press, I feel it's important to remember we share plenty of similarities.
Orange Matchmakers are one of the best snacks you can have at Christmas.
Nothing beats the fresh air of a wintry walk through the local park.
Voting is a democratic right that people in the past have died for. It’s important, and saying “I’m not going to vote, it will make no difference” is not an excuse. For God’s sake, if you’ve registered to vote, do it.
Don’t dodge one of your fundamental human rights. Make your own impact on the politics of this country. Vote.
