Forum Topic

Your papers may be late tomorrow....

Certain papers don't seem to report or report much about the climate and ecological emergency.There is a Private Member's Bill supported by cross party MPs:https://www.ceebill.uk/billhttps://www.parliament.uk/external/committees/commons-select/business-energy-industrial-strategy/news/2020/beis-and-eac-chairs-write-to-chancellor-19-21/

Philippa Bond ● 2247d27 Comments

https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/the-climate-and-ecological-emergency-bill-could-be-our-last-chance-to-avert-the-accelerating-crisis

Philippa Bond ● 2247d

Was headline news and they’re going to treat XR as an organised crime group next. Having fined Piers Corbyn £10K, it looks like they need to ‘be seen to be doing something’, especially after the police gave XR free range to do what they wanted.

Russell Pearson ● 2246d

So I suppose the majority of these newspapers are owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.  I gather he is a Trump supporter and his son who has resigned from the board of the company doesn't agree with him.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53617966

Philippa Bond ● 2245d

Do you think XR protesters have the right to close down our free press?

Russell Pearson ● 2244d

On the other hand, Sky regularly does a lot on climate change, and it's from the same stable.  The Telegraph (not a Murdoch paper) is the worst - there is an awful journalist called Allison Pearson and some others who are climate change deniers.  Disgusting paper.

Claire Moran ● 2244d

She’s no relation. Now should people like XR supporters, have the right to stop a newspaper being published because they think their writers are disgusting, or if they disagree with their politics?

Russell Pearson ● 2244d

Russell, I think blocking one evenings distribution is hardly closing down our free press. The fact that most of out papers are owned by offshore billionaires who uniformly push a right wing free market agenda is bad enough, but none of them choose to pay tax in this country. They are all available online and the disruption was one day. I am not sure anyone missed the diatribe of xenophobia and misogyny that is the main feature of several of those papers that were disrupted.

Paul Green ● 2244d

So you think they have the right, but were ineffectual?

Russell Pearson ● 2244d

Our Free Press.Last year Boris Johnson suspended Parliament in order to prevent the Govt losing a Brexit vote, embarrassing the Queen in the process. As was suspected at the time, the High Court ruled that Johnson had acted unlawfully.Just recently the Govt finally published a report which it had previously suppressed which confiremed that the government had reason to suspect Russian interference in the Brexit referendum, and chose to ignore it.Today Brandon Lewis a Conservative ministeradmitted that a Bil being put before Parliamentwould break International Law.Leaving aside the vexed question of Jeremy Corbyn and his leadersghip  for the moment, are you honestly going to stand there and seriously suggestthat had it been a Labour Governmement in power, who showed such contempt for the law, having broken it once and shown every intention of doing so agaim,and in addition suppressed a report indicating thepossibility of Russian interference in the UK democratic process, that your "free press" would have given a Labour Govt. the same kid glove treatment as they afford the TV Personality BorisJohnson and his shower of bumbling incompetents? michael adams‘When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.’Rupert Murdoch

Michael Adams ● 2244d

Everybody talks about our 'free' press because it isn't the  state press but how 'free' is it really?  James Murdoch left his father's News Corp - truly a press empire of TV channels and newspapers - because of editorial differences. https://time.com/5765304/rupert-murdoch-son-climate/ The Daily Telegraph was known as the Torygraph until when it was rooting for it's columnist (ex columnist?) Boris Johnson as Prime Minister - then it became the Daily Boris.I don't know that it reports on more on climate change matters than News Corp does, does it?  https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/02/04/uks-boris-johnson-urges-countries-set-net-zero-emissions-goals-2020/Are promises made just to be broken?  Does it just depend on the amount of lobbying that goes on?

Philippa Bond ● 2243d

All these conspiracy theories. You either support a free press, or not. Even if they print ideas you disagree with, or you don’t like their owner.

Russell Pearson ● 2243d

In my training PR years I was always taught that restrictions on the UK media regarding certain criteria (D notices) were among the most stringent in the world. I know many journalists and there is a lot they can't print for a variety of reasons, although sometimes they do spill the beans privately, eg I knew about Edwina Curry's affair with John Major many months before any paper published it.  There are severe restrictions on the UK media, whether you realise it or not. Would love an update on all this from current journalists, including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-NoticeThe selection of 'favourable' media for the Downing Street press briefings recently was a Trumpian disgrace.

Claire Moran ● 2243d

>  selection of 'favourable' media for the Downing Street press briefings recently was a Trumpian disgrace. All the more need for a fully free press, unrestrained by either government, or other ideological restrictions?

Russell Pearson ● 2243d

Of course, but no press in the world has that indulgence.  All are (in some cases entirely rightly) subject to legal constraints. If your partner spun a load of lies to the press about you, would you be happy if they printed it?  The media is there to inform, educate and entertain and be ethical, within reason, while they do it.

Claire Moran ● 2243d

>  The media is there to inform, educate and entertain and be ethical, within reason, while they do it.That’s what the BBC should do, according to their Reithian mandate at least. We pay a license for that.The question is, should those such as XR, or disgruntled W4 peeps, be entitled to curtail the press because they don’t like the owner or the print?

Russell Pearson ● 2243d

Big can of worms, Russell, and you have hit one of the moment fundamental and important possible today.

Claire Moran ● 2243d

How long were they doing it for?  Just stopping the distribution of newspapers when most news is now read online isn't anything like as big a deal it would have been in the past. I know the Torygraph or Daily Boris just took their paywall down.

Philippa Bond ● 2242d

Phillipa, people are fed up with ER's childish 'protests' or should I  substitute protests for an excuse for a few people to feel good about themselves.We have got the message ER are on about loud and clear thank's, now they need go and do something constructive not disruptive for a change.If they did folk may start to respect them a little more than they do.

Adrian Irving ● 2242d

Agreed, Adrian. Preventing the free publication of certain newspapers, whether you like those newspapers or not, is a symbolically aggressive and worrying action. It implies that we are only to read publications that ER approve of, and that's a very slippery slope to go down.

Colin Jordan ● 2242d

Russell, I think there is a word missing, it is not just free but representative. THe limited controls over press ownership have been watered down to allow Murdoch to extend his claws deep into UK press and media, as well as to allow a dodgy individual to own the Express and run it into the ground. The owners of the Telegraph are tax exiles and have their own political and anti-EU and anti-regulatory agenda. The owner of the Mail is also not tax domiciled in the UK. I read as many papers as I can but for example the Telegraph has become an embarrassment. Its UKIP on steroids, with articles from the opaque and dubiously funded Centre for Policy studies and a right wing Swedish MEP just examples of how it creates an echo chamber. I do not think many realise what narrow opinions they are exposed toNone of this is conspiracy theory, so dont dismiss it as such. If we look at Brexit, around 80% of the press by circulation was pro. Regardless of one's own view that is hardly representative. The arguments that the press look to follow public sentiment is weak at best, I would say more they often pander to the lowest common demoninator and look to instill fear. The change in tone on immigrants once the Mirror group took over the Express a good example of reversing this.

Paul Green ● 2242d

Paul I think is right.  Murdoch now owns so many TV stations and newspapers that it isn't as free a press as we would like to think it. It seems there are too many tax exiles not wanting any EU laws on perspicacity to interfere with theirbusinesses.  I don't think it is about XR wanting to control what we read at all. I think it is more about the papers controlling what we read or don't read.

Philippa Bond ● 2242d

Phillipa, you were asked if you supported ER's blockade action in an earlier post.Maybe you could give dear reader a straight answer.

Adrian Irving ● 2242d

'I think it is more about the papers controlling what we read or don't read.'The papers do not control what we read or don't read. We control it by the papers we choose to buy or not buy. Suppressing the publication of particular newspapers, whatever they are and for whatever reason, is an example of 'controlling what we read or don't read'.

Colin Jordan ● 2241d

Colin, that is a rather naive and simplistic approach. Many people buy the same paper for years or what their parents read. The content and agenda of many of the press has drifted rightwards over the last 20 years, the Express, Mail and Telegraph the strongest example. 80% of the press by circulation is pushing a particular right wing/ anti-EU agenda, at the same time often explicitly doing down the BBC with fake culture wars. This is compounded by Facebook which has become an even greater echo chamber where people unwittingly are served even more extreme news and opinions by the algorithms. In this environment, many are unaware just how polarised the views they receive are.

Paul Green ● 2241d

There is also a more insidious aspect to some newspapers reporting of the news - selectivity of the stories they run. Certain papers will pick a certain type of news (say, crimes committed by eastern europeans in the UK). When the news desk wades through the dozens of daily reports of crimes or court cases they simply pick out each one that reflects their narrative and ignore the rest. The crimes by eastern europeans appear in their papers, two or three a week perhaps, while the dozens of other crimes do not. Over time the readers gain a perspective that there is a crime problem with eastern europeans being here in the UK. The reality is that these crimes are tiny percentage of all UK crimes, but as very few of these other crimes get reported that is not the impression given. You, as a buyer and reader of that paper are not being fed lies or false reporting. But you are being fed a narrative. You may think your paper is simply reporting on events. However that paper is consciously aiming to influence your views.

Alan Clark ● 2241d

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/28/climate-crisis-citizens-assembly-extinction-rebellion

Philippa Bond ● 2241d

We are still waiting for your answer to Russell's question Phillipa.

Adrian Irving ● 2241d