tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/uk-newspapers-11873/articles
UK newspapers – The Conversation
2024-01-24T17:21:20Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221888
2024-01-24T17:21:20Z
2024-01-24T17:21:20Z
UK press warns of Nato war with Russia – newspapers are clearly keen to avoid mistakes of WWII
<p>“Britain must prepare for war. America won’t save us this time,” declared the headline on a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/19/britain-must-prepare-for-war-america-wont-save-us-this-time/">column in the Daily Telegraph</a> on January 19. The Daily Mail, meanwhile, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12981021/Nato-braced-war-Russia-20-years.html">asserted on January 18 that</a> Nato is “braced for all-out war with Russia in the next 20 years”. It cited a Nato official’s advice that civilians should “prepare for cataclysmic conflicts and the chilling prospect of being conscripted”. </p>
<p>The Sun has <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/25372068/grant-shapps-grow-army-ww3-threat/">alerted its readers</a> to the prospect of “wars in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea in five years”. In the Spectator, a <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-west-must-stop-playing-mr-nice-guy/">recent column noted</a> the defence secretary Grant Shapps’ assertion that the UK is “moving from a post-war to pre-war world” and suggested that “the west must stop playing Mr Nice Guy”. </p>
<p>Another column in the New Statesman similarly <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/geopolitics/2023/12/robert-kaplan-war-world-disorder">warned that</a> a “worldwide, bipolar military conflict” will be “the organising principle of geopolitics for years to come”. It quoted Shapps as saying: “Old enemies are reanimated. New foes are taking shape. Battle lines are being redrawn.”</p>
<p>As fears of a new war emerge, I have delved into the newspaper print archives to explore how journalists reported the risk of conflict during the years before the world wars of the 20th century.</p>
<p>Press coverage in the years preceding the second world war served a generation of readers haunted by the appalling death toll of mechanised trench warfare between 1914 and 1918. Public concern was reinforced by fear of bombing, which newspapers and cinema newsreels depicted in searing images from the civil war in Spain between 1936 and 1939 and the Japanese bombing of China in 1931.</p>
<p>Despite the nature of Hitler’s regime in Germany, the Conservative prime minister of the time, Neville Chamberlain, was determined that British newspapers must promote appeasement. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neville-chamberlains-adviser-took-spinning-for-the-pm-to-new-and-dangerous-levels-147533">Press management</a> became a political priority for Chamberlain. </p>
<p>He was helped to achieve it by two key lieutenants. Downing Street press secretary George Steward and Sir Joseph Ball, the chairman of the Conservative Research Department, worked closely with the prime minister to persuade British newspapers that appeasement was in the national interest. Chamberlain insisted that hostility to his approach would weaken Britain’s influence abroad.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neville-chamberlains-adviser-took-spinning-for-the-pm-to-new-and-dangerous-levels-147533">How Neville Chamberlain's adviser took spinning for the PM to new and dangerous levels</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Munich agreement</h2>
<p>When Chamberlain negotiated the notorious <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/znxdnrd/revision/9">Munich agreement</a> with Hitler in September 1938, The Times did not oppose the transfer of the Sudetenland to Germany without Czech consent. Instead, Britain’s most prestigious establishment broadsheet <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24402688">declared that</a>: “The volume of applause for Mr Chamberlain, which continues to grow throughout the globe, registers a popular judgement that neither politicians nor historians are likely to reverse.” </p>
<p>It predicted that Chamberlain’s diplomacy would end in “an era when the race for armaments will be seen for the madness that it is and will be abandoned because it has ceased even to be profitable”.</p>
<p>The mass market Conservative Daily Mail chastised Labour’s Clement Attlee for complaining about the “shameless betrayal” of the Czechs and accused Attlee of issuing “frothy diatribes”. It promoted Conservative optimism that the agreement would guarantee peace.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tear-out of Guardian coverage of Munich agreement" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571149/original/file-20240124-17-ecipr0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Guardian was unimpressed by the Munich Agreement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Manchester Guardian, 1 October 1938.</span></span>
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<p>The liberal Manchester Guardian loathed Hitler and harboured grave doubts about appeasement, but it could see no practical alternative. In a leader column on October 3 1938, it cautioned: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Now that the first flush of emotion is over it is the duty of all of us to see where the ‘peace with honour’ has brought us. The Prime Minister claims that it has brought us ‘peace for our time’. It is an inspiring claim, and if it proves to be a just one, he will have earned a place in history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The following day’s edition of the popular left wing Daily Mirror was similarly unconvinced. It feared the “further strengthening until it becomes invincible of the Nazi domination of Europe”. The Mirror believed peace could only be secured by military strength brought about by rapid rearmament, but it could identify no alternative to compromise and deterrence. It feared a “world so armed and so explosive that it will blow itself to bits”.</p>
<p>In a subsequent leader on October 7, 1938, The Guardian hoped new weapons and additional recruitment to the armed forces might reinforce British diplomatic influence. However, it warned that if British foreign policy did not change substantially, “ordinary men and women” would not be persuaded that “the diplomacy our armaments are to serve” would work.</p>
<h2>Doomed to repeat mistakes?</h2>
<p>Journalism’s failures between 1936 and 1939 were less appalling than the jingoistic press campaigns that preceded the first world war and continued throughout it. </p>
<p>Between 1914 and 1918, newspapers downplayed misery and extolled victory. Soldiers found their behaviour hard to forgive. Such reporting promoted the belief that newspapers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/27/first-world-war-state-press-reporting">could not be trusted to tell the truth</a>. It won newspapers a reputation as the main backer, and perhaps even an instigator, of conflict. </p>
<p>Later, their failures during the era of appeasement meant that British newspapers were not entirely trusted by their readers when the second world war was declared in September 1939. They were widely read but little loved.</p>
<p>In highlighting the risks facing the world as Ukraine resists Russian aggression and fighting rages in Gaza, newspapers suggest that they have learned from conflicts of the past. They are neither encouraging war nor disguising the possibility that Nato may be called upon to defend borders and democracy. </p>
<p>Britain has better newspapers than it had in 1914 or 1939. Would their editorial strengths survive the outbreak of war? I fear that now – as it was in the past – truth may still be the first casualty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221888/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union</span></em></p>
How newspapers reported the risk of war in the age of appeasement.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216593
2023-10-31T16:47:05Z
2023-10-31T16:47:05Z
UK newspaper coverage of the 1967 six-day Arab-Israeli war foresaw decades of conflict in Middle East
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556806/original/file-20231031-15-irgz81.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C6%2C850%2C489&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How The Guardian covered the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Guardian</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, describes his country’s war against Hamas as Israel’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/28/netanyahu-declares-a-second-war-of-independence-as-fears-for-gazans-grow">second war of independence</a>”. The first was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2564005">fought in 1948</a>, but the war that gave Israel control of Gaza took place 19 years later.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-1967-six-day-war">six-day war</a> between Israel and its Arab neighbours in 1967 was fought amid intense superpower tension and vivid international fears that it might spread. </p>
<p>Having spent a career as a news journalist, often reporting from conflict zones, I now research UK newspaper coverage of major historical events. Printed newspaper archives from the time reveal prescience among UK correspondents covering the six-day war. Even in 1967, it seems, it was becoming clear that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians – and between Israel and its Middle Eastern neighbours – had the potential to fester for decades. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of the six-day war showing territory held by Israel before and after the conflict." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556822/original/file-20231031-29-fey6h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of the six-day war showing territory held by Israel before and after the conflict.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ling.Nut/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From Tel Aviv, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/30/world/charles-douglas-home-48-editor-of-times-of-london.html">Charles Douglas-Home</a> of The Times identified problems likely to arise from Israel’s military success. “Israel has won another battle”, he explained, “but who can say that she has won the war?” Douglas-Home predicted that the Jewish homeland would exist “in a cycle of eruption every decade” if it could not solve “the problem of the refugees”.</p>
<p>It was ironic, he suggested, that the refugee crisis had “become an internal matter whereas before it was studiously kept outside”. However, rapid Israeli advances had left 250,000 Palestinian refugees cut off from any escape into Egypt of which, until 1967, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-six-key-moments-for-the-gaza-strip-216185">Gaza Strip was part</a>. Douglas-Home predicted that “a long-term internal security problem” now faced Israel.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-six-key-moments-for-the-gaza-strip-216185">Israel-Hamas war: six key moments for the Gaza Strip</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/john-dickie-obituary-zw8gptkzm">John Dickie</a>, the diplomatic editor of the mass circulation conservative Daily Mail recognised the global challenges. In the short term, the USSR would be weakened by the military failure of its proxies Egypt and Syria. However, he added, “Arab desires for revenge are likely to strengthen”. Dickie feared Israel’s neighbours would be determined to “qualify for nuclear status”.</p>
<h2>Wishful thinking</h2>
<p>On behalf its readership of Labour-supporting Britons, the Daily Mirror hoped that Israeli success could bring security for the region and the world. In a front-page editorial, the Mirror posed “the crucial questions”: would Russia and America work together to devise “a lasting political settlement?” Would “victorious Israel be prudent enough – despite her massive territorial conquests in the war – to be modest and generous in her political demands on the Arab states?”. Would “the Arabs jettison their fanatical delusion that Israel doesn’t really exist – and agree to exist side by side”?</p>
<p>The Mirror concluded that though Britain and America were Israel’s staunch supporters, they “cannot alone conjure Arab-Israel coexistence out of the blood on the sand”. Israel would have to show magnanimity in victory. It must grant the Arabs “peace and time and help to build their own prosperity”. Fighting again would be futile. Israel’s Arab enemies would soon learn that “the USSR does not back losers twice”.</p>
<p>For its highly educated readership, The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/09/harold-jackson-obituary">Manchester Guardian’s Harold Jackson</a> reported from Tel Aviv that the military victory was “unprecedented in modern times”. Israeli forces had won without external support “because they had the better army”. The equipment available to each side was similar, but “wars are won by men and the Israelis had the supreme advantage here”. </p>
<p>Jackson noted that Israel had not issued official casualty figures, only an assurance that they were “relatively light”. He reflected that: “Seeing line after line of Egyptian bodies in the Gaza strip makes one wonder what the Israeli losses are relative to.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Israeli tanks manoeuvring in the Sinai desert during the six-day war." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556823/original/file-20231031-27-cvpk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556823/original/file-20231031-27-cvpk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556823/original/file-20231031-27-cvpk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556823/original/file-20231031-27-cvpk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556823/original/file-20231031-27-cvpk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556823/original/file-20231031-27-cvpk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556823/original/file-20231031-27-cvpk77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli tanks manoeuvring in the Sinai desert during the six-day war.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IDF and Defense Establishment Archive/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Observer, owned in 1967 by the Astor family, offered additional sophistication. The balance of power in the Middle East had changed profoundly and fast. “Audacious generalship” and superior military efficiency had given Israel “a fantastic success”. Now “a steady nerve and proper self-assurance” would be essential if the Jewish state was to succeed in “the inherently much harder task of making a durable peace”.</p>
<h2>Cold war in the Middle East</h2>
<p>The Economist contributed understanding of the cold war context. If Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and his Syrian and Jordanian allies had won “the USSR would have acquired status and influence”. Moscow might have exploited this to put renewed pressure on America over its role in Vietnam. Instead Israel had prevailed. Now, any “final peace settlement would mean doing something about those refugees”.</p>
<p>The sophisticated weekly title acknowledged that the populations of Gaza and the West Bank “have been wilfully misused by the Arab governments”. Nevertheless, while terrorist groups should be expelled from the Gaza strip, in return for Arab recognition of its right to exist Israel must recognise the plight of those left stateless and destitute.</p>
<p>If the echoes from 1967 sound familiar 56 years later, we should acknowledge that this has long remained a smouldering conflict, never a frozen one. Keir Starmer would recognise the Labour Party dilemma described in 1967 by <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-nora-beloff-5580821.html">Nora Beloff</a>, pioneering female political correspondent for the Observer. </p>
<p>Writing as the six-day war came to an end, Beloff predicted that the UK’s Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, was going to have a hard time keeping his government and party together as peace was negotiated. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4326611">Reluctant to recognise Israel</a> after its establishment in May 1948, Labour remained “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/261063">sharply divided</a>” between pro-Arab and pro-Israeli MPs. </p>
<p>A similar dilemma <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/30/keir-starmer-labour-israel-gaza">confronts the opposition leader today</a> as he tries to reconcile opposing views within his own party in parliament and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Free Speech Union and the Society of Editors.</span></em></p>
British foreign correspondents predicted a ‘long-term security problem’ for Israel.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210162
2023-08-18T10:49:32Z
2023-08-18T10:49:32Z
Edwardian local press invented the ‘middlebrow’ with a lively mix of local news, reviews and fiction
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538562/original/file-20230720-21-2ojfw0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1548%2C1026&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our First Tiff by Robert Walker Macbeth (1878).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/our-first-tiff-98601">Walker Art Gallery</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/history-of-the-provincial-press-in-england-9781441162304/">provincial press has declined</a> in Britain, so too has local arts and cultural criticism. In the 19th and early 20th century, regional newspapers regularly published reviews of theatre productions and a wide variety of books including history, science, travel writing, poetry and fiction. </p>
<p>Starting in the late 19th century and coming to a head in the Edwardian period (1901-1914), regional newspapers even experimented with <a href="https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/jmps/article-abstract/14/1/70/380491/Reviews-Outside-the-Usual-Places-Daily-Newspaper?redirectedFrom=fulltext">a different style of reviewing</a>, which was shorter, chattier and more personal – a shift from the more formal style of the Victorian era.</p>
<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/victoriannewsnew0000brow_j4c2">Historians</a> have traced the sad decline in the fortunes of the local and regional newspaper press with interest. In the 19th century, it was impossible to get a London paper to distant towns or cities by breakfast, because the train system didn’t yet run quickly enough. This gave local newspapers a clear advantage in distribution.</p>
<p>Transportation began to change at the turn of the 20th century, however, and by the 1950s, the national dailies <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/history-of-the-provincial-press-in-england-9781441162304/">dominated the British market</a>. As <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/history-of-the-provincial-press-in-england-9781441162304/">a result</a>, local and regional papers had to consolidate titles. The computerisation of the newspaper workforce meant further lost jobs in the 1980s and 1990s. And today, they struggle to compete with social media for classified ad revenue.</p>
<p>Access to these local and regional papers can be gained through inexpensive databases such as the <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/">British Newspaper Archive</a>, which is available at many local libraries. A brief perusal of this database shows that many different sorts of papers published book reviews, from major regional titles such as the Glasgow Herald to smaller titles, including the Walsall Advertiser.</p>
<p>These reviews were published before the reviews in esteemed national quarterlies or monthlies and could therefore set the tone. A reader could turn to their local morning paper for ideas of theatre productions to purchase tickets to, or books to borrow from circulating libraries.</p>
<p>Although newspaper syndications existed during this period and reviews of monthly magazines were often repeated verbatim in several local titles, reviews of individual books were overwhelmingly original. This means that someone, probably local to the area, received a copy of the book and was paid to report on the reading experience for a wide variety of readerships.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Painting of a woman in a Victorian-style black dress and hair in a bun reading a large newspaper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538567/original/file-20230720-17-8fpc6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538567/original/file-20230720-17-8fpc6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538567/original/file-20230720-17-8fpc6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538567/original/file-20230720-17-8fpc6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538567/original/file-20230720-17-8fpc6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538567/original/file-20230720-17-8fpc6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538567/original/file-20230720-17-8fpc6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Woman Reading a Newspaper by Norman Garstin (1891).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/garstin-a-woman-reading-a-newspaper-n04234">Tate</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since these reviews had no byline, it is difficult to trace who wrote them. Book reviews were also printed on the same page as articles about economics, politics, or sports, which made them seem more like news and less like a rarefied topic divorced from the issues of the day.</p>
<h2>The changing review</h2>
<p>In the Edwardian period, when the number of readers had risen <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/literature/printing-and-publishing-history/free-town-libraries-their-formation-management-and-history-britain-france-germany-and-america">due to</a> the establishment of public libraries and state-funded primary education, reviews in local and regional newspapers began to change and become more experimental in style.</p>
<p>Due to competition from an ever-growing number of newspapers and magazines, reviews were generally published earlier and became shorter. Various cultural commentators, including <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edith-Wharton">Edith Wharton</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/T-S-Eliot">T.S. Eliot</a>, bemoaned the lowering of the national tone through these shorter reviews. </p>
<p>Edith Wharton, for example, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25119460">complained</a> that reviewers supplied plot summaries rather than judging the books: “Whether real criticism be of service to literature or not, it is clear that this pseudo-reviewing is harmful, since it places books of very different qualities on the same dead level of mediocrity, by ignoring their true purport and significance.”</p>
<p>Wharton and others attributed this different style of reviewing to the cultivation of a different style of reading, which became known as “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-feminine-middlebrow-novel-1920s-to-1950s-9780199269334?cc=us&lang=en&">middlebrow</a>”. Reviews in provincial papers targeted their remarks about books at the leisure reader, complaining when a title was too long, disliking a book when it seemed too gloomy, or praising an author who seemed to be writing for women.</p>
<p>Such reviewing catered to a new, less reverent form of reading. Although many cultural critics of the day (and today) <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230354647_4">sneer at middlebrow taste</a>, I view it as a democratisation of the reading experience.</p>
<p>The loss of the local paper was also a loss for local readers, who could no longer rely on receiving reviews from someone in their area. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/history-of-the-provincial-press-in-england-9781441162304/">Some newspaper historians</a> argue that modern local papers will have to seek new business models to survive, given that they are no longer able to compete with social media. </p>
<p>Forms of media are always changing. Today anyone can publish a review on sites like Goodreads. The local press must consider many factors as it carves a place for itself in the new media landscape – and perhaps the vibrant arts scene of the past can serve as food for thought.</p>
<hr>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Palmer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In the 19th century, it was impossible to get a London paper to distant towns or cities by breakfast. This gave local newspapers an advantage in distribution.
Stephanie Palmer, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts & Humanities, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209082
2023-07-06T13:20:24Z
2023-07-06T13:20:24Z
From ‘girls’ to Lionesses: how newspaper coverage of women’s football has changed
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535844/original/file-20230705-19-9gad2t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C13%2C3516%2C2977&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rose Lavelle of USA and Beth Mead of England during the FIFA Women's World Cup France 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rose-lavelle-usa-beth-mead-england-1441955117">Romain Biard/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the 2023 Women’s World Cup kicks off on July 20, fans in the UK will have access to a wealth of media coverage. All games will be <a href="https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2023/bbc-itv-rights-deal-womens-fifa-world-cup">shown on TV</a>, while in print and online, <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/buy-lionesses-world-cup-guide-30307752">analysis of the teams</a> and tournament <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jul/04/womens-world-cup-2023-team-guides-part-one-new-zealand">has already begun</a>. </p>
<p>The tournament itself is likely to be the most attended <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jun/08/womens-world-cup-2023-set-to-break-attendance-record#:%7E:text=Women%27s%20World%20Cup%20to%20break%20records%20with%20more%20than%20one%20million%20tickets%20sold,-%27The%20momentum%20is&text=This%20year%27s%20Women%27s%20World%20Cup,sold%2C%20Fifa%20said%20on%20Thursday">women’s sporting event ever</a>. But this interest in the sport has not happened overnight. Media coverage is contributing towards the growing interest in women’s football – and our perceptions of the sport. </p>
<p>My new <a href="https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2022-0195">research</a>, conducted with colleagues at Durham University and Mississippi State University, is the first research study to examine print media coverage of women’s football in the UK over time.</p>
<p>We compared print media coverage of the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups, looking at the quantity and quality of articles printed in five UK newspapers: three broadsheets – the Guardian, the Independent (replaced by the Telegraph for 2019 as the Independent moved online only) and the Times; and two tabloids – the Sun and the Daily Mirror. We also carried out 49 interviews with fans about their thoughts on the coverage.</p>
<h2>Front-page news</h2>
<p>We found a massive increase in coverage for the 2019 competition. Between the 2015 and 2019 Women’s World Cups, the number of articles published by these newspapers about the competition rose from 124 in 2015 to 642 in 2019. </p>
<p>The number of front-page articles increased from seven in the 2015 tournament to 22 in 2019. On the back pages, the number of articles rose from five in 2015 to 40 in 2019. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Women footballers in red kit celebrating" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535839/original/file-20230705-23-3k1n27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C11%2C3232%2C2493&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535839/original/file-20230705-23-3k1n27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535839/original/file-20230705-23-3k1n27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535839/original/file-20230705-23-3k1n27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535839/original/file-20230705-23-3k1n27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535839/original/file-20230705-23-3k1n27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535839/original/file-20230705-23-3k1n27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Megan Rapinoe of the USA celebrates after scoring during the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/reims-francejune-11megan-rapinoe-usa-celebrates-1436843984">feelphoto/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>There was a fourfold increase in the number of photos, from 159 in 2015 to 636 in 2019. The type of photograph used also changed: 88% in 2019 were shots of the players competing rather than other photographs, such as posed shots. This was up from 69% in 2015. </p>
<p>One of the fans we spoke to said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… [the 2019 Women’s World Cup] just felt so much bigger this time, it was the focus of our summer… The national newspapers were sending out some of their biggest journalists to the World Cup, who weren’t part of that natural group of women’s football journalists. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>We also looked at changes in the way women’s football was discussed in the press. In both the 2015 and 2019 tournaments, there was evidence of a move away from the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14660970.2014.963314">sexualisation of women players</a> that has plagued women’s sport. We found no articles referring to players’ sexual appeal.</p>
<p>The use of infantilising language, such as referring to players as “girls” or “ladies”, also reduced drastically between 2015 and 2019. In 2015, there were 28 references to the players as “girls” in the tabloid papers. In 2019, there were three uses of “girls” and “lady” or “ladies” in broadsheet papers and 11 in tabloids. </p>
<p>Instead, there were many more usages of the word “Lionesses”, representing England women as the embodiment of strength, aggression and bravery, and helping to construct a sense of national pride.</p>
<h2>Critical appraisals</h2>
<p>A new appearance in the 2019 coverage was considered criticism of players and teams, in line with the typical reporting of men’s football. This could represent a shift towards greater gender equality, with women subject to respectful but honest evaluations based on their performance. This can also be connected to higher expectations for England’s national team following their success in recent years.</p>
<p>Also new in 2019 was coverage of gender inequality in football. This included the general treatment of women’s football, such as trialling rule changes at FIFA Women’s World Cup tournaments. Here there was a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/22/penalty-law-womens-world-cup-fifa-guinea-pig-var">sense of injustice</a> at FIFA experimenting with the laws and positioning women’s football as inferior to men’s.</p>
<p>Newspapers covered the need to increase opportunities for girls and women to play football. Stories <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/phil-nevilles-team-need-to-keep-their-new-profile-xwj32mglq">included details</a>, for instance, on how many players could not play football until their late teens due to a lack of access for girls and poor infrastructure. </p>
<p>Articles covered the history of women’s football, including the 1921 Football Association ban on women’s football and the impact on the development of women’s football. They also reported on pay inequality, making direct comparisons between men’s and women’s international football. </p>
<p>However, the fans we spoke to were critical of the “time-limited” nature of coverage of women’s football, largely reserved for the duration of the World Cup or other major tournaments, and also dependent upon the success of the England national team. Although women’s sport has become more visible in recent years, it <a href="https://theconversation.com/coverage-of-womens-sport-is-pathetic-at-the-best-of-times-the-lockdown-has-made-it-even-worse-140593">still occupies</a> less than 10% of annual print and TV coverage. </p>
<p>The 2023 Women’s World Cup looks set to generate another increase in column inches. Keep an eye on how newspapers talk about the matches, teams and players – it may well affect the future of the sport.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209082/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stacey Pope receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
We examined how newspapers in the UK covered the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups.
Stacey Pope, Associate Professor in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201104
2023-03-03T16:30:43Z
2023-03-03T16:30:43Z
Oakeshott and Hancock: betraying a confidential source damages journalism and is a threat to public health
<p>It is an iron rule of journalism – probably the first lesson that a rookie reporter learns on joining a professional newsroom: never betray a confidential source. A core principle of the National Union of Journalists <a href="https://www.nuj.org.uk/about-us/rules-and-guidance/code-of-conduct.html">code of conduct states</a> that a journalist “protects the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her/his work”.</p>
<p>This principle is also enshrined in UK law: the 1981 <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1981/49">Contempt of Court Act</a> exempts journalists from contempt charges for “refusing to disclose the source of information” (with some caveats around national security and crime prevention). Under the 1984 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/police-and-criminal-evidence-act-1984-pace-codes-of-practice">Police and Criminal Evidence Act</a>, police cannot seize journalistic material without first making an application to a judge.</p>
<p>There are good reasons for such strong protections. They underpin the fundamental role of watchdog journalism in a democracy and the ability of journalists to hold the powerful to account. </p>
<p>We only have to think of “<a href="https://www.history.com/news/watergate-deep-throat-fbi-informant-nixon">Deep Throat</a>”, the famed source for Woodward and Bernstein’s exposure of Richard Nixon’s complicity in the 1970s US Watergate scandal, or the disc detailing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/may/23/john-wick-expenses-scandal">MPs’ expenses</a> that found its way to the Telegraph in the UK in 2009, to understand the vital importance of preserving source confidentiality.</p>
<p>In all probability, neither scandal would have seen the light of day if the original source had not trusted guarantees of anonymity.</p>
<p>What, then, do we make of the decision by journalist Isabel Oakeshott to present the Telegraph with the complete cache of more than 100,000 WhatsApp messages confidentially given to her by Matt Hancock, for which she signed a non-disclosure agreement? Interviewed on the BBC’s Today programme, Oakeshott <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64818969">claimed</a> an “overwhelming national interest” in breaching the golden rule of journalism. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1631199938683052035"}"></div></p>
<p>She said: “Millions … were adversely affected by the catastrophic decision to lockdown this country repeatedly on the flimsiest of evidence, often for political reasons.” Oakeshott insists she wanted the truth to come out.</p>
<h2>In whose interest?</h2>
<p>There are three reasons for casting severe doubt on her stated rationale. First, by her own admission, she spent a year collaborating with Hancock on a book that was published three months ago. Since she had access to his messages at least 15 months ago, why did she wait so long to reveal information in the national interest? </p>
<p>Pressed on this point in the BBC interview, she said that the cache of messages represented <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0f69y72/the-hancock-messages-leak">more than 2.3 million words</a> and that the book she and Hancock were collaborating on was twice as long as the average political memoir. So her claim appears to be that she had simply not had time to do so.</p>
<p>Second, she deliberately chose the Telegraph for her exclusive, a paper which <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/02/even-now-nobody-wants-confront-awful-truth-britains-pandemic/">is known</a>, as is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=620878875789449">Oakeshott herself</a>, for its profound editorial hostility to – and partisan coverage of – the scale of lockdown measures. </p>
<p>It would surely have been more responsible, having decided to break an agreement of confidentiality on the grounds of public interest, to do so via a non-partisan broadcaster or to make the messages available online for everyone to make their own judgment.</p>
<p>Third, a full <a href="https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/terms-of-reference/">public inquiry</a> has been established. Led by Baroness Hallett, its remit is designed precisely to examine responses to the pandemic both by health authorities and by the government. </p>
<p>A genuine public interest response to any concerns raised by the former health secretary’s messages would surely be to hand them over to that inquiry where they could be properly contextualised and analysed, rather than allow them to be selectively quoted in pursuit of a journalistic agenda.</p>
<p>Instead, we are now seeing cherrypicked messages published piecemeal to further support the Telegraph’s own editorial position. Crucially, they are being published without any input from the scientific community about its expert advice on the urgent need for intervention.</p>
<h2>Damage done</h2>
<p>In fact, rather than serving the public interest, these revelations are more likely to cause longer-term damage both to public health and to journalism. Selective publication of Hancock’s messages has successfully raised doubts about the wisdom and effectiveness of government lockdown measures without any counterarguments from medical experts or scientists. </p>
<p>Should we be exposed to another full-scale public health crisis which requires government action on the advice of those experts, we will surely have less faith in any restrictions imposed by politicians. Such resistance would no doubt delight the libertarians, but could have dire consequences for public health and safety.</p>
<p>But the damage to journalism could be even greater. Next time someone discovers corruption or wrongdoing at the highest level and wants to blow the whistle on, say, a powerful cabinet member or a wealthy industrialist at significant personal risk to themselves, will they be quite so ready to trust a journalist’s promise of confidentiality? </p>
<p>At the very least, Oakeshott’s apparent readiness to betray her source – whatever her stated justification – is likely to generate even more cynicism about an industry that already struggles to command public confidence.</p>
<p>We can be fairly confident that any whistleblower will stay very clear of Oakeshott who – we should not forget – has <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-sunday-times-jails-its-source/">form in giving up sources</a> in the Chris Huhne-Vicky Pryce affair which ended in the pair both being jailed for perverting the course of justice.</p>
<p>But high-profile incidents like these will surely make it less likely that such public-spirited individuals will be prepared to risk their own livelihood in the public interest. The only beneficiaries will be the rich and powerful who will continue to escape proper scrutiny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201104/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett is Professor of Communications at the University where he has taught journalism students for nearly 30 years. He is on the management and editorial boards of the British Journalism Review. He is a member of the British Broadcasting Challenge which campaigns for Public Service Broadcasting. He is on the board of Hacked Off. </span></em></p>
The first thing journalists learn is that confidential sources must be protected except in extraordinary circumstances.
Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of Westminster
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196586
2022-12-20T10:04:33Z
2022-12-20T10:04:33Z
Christmas in wartime: how Britain coped with the ‘bleak midwinter’ of 1942
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501017/original/file-20221214-7338-pkk4by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C74%2C3311%2C2377&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">From 'make do' to 'make merry': Britons did their best to forget the hardships of war at Christmas in 1942.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imperial War Museums</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Christmas Eve 1942, the Manchester Guardian recalled that the first world war had only lasted four Christmases. Now, Hitler’s war also had “four to its discredit, each one more austere than its predecessor”.
Christmas 1942 would be a sadly pared-back affair. Cards were tiny and printed on thin card. Wrapping paper was not available. Festive food and drink was in desperately short supply.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, hope was abundant. In the course of my research into how the British press reported the second world war, I’ve unearthed from the newspaper archives plenty of examples (sadly mostly behind paywalls) of how the home front coped with the privations of total war. And in the midst of the glum reflections on a wartime Yuletide, there was also a great deal of optimism in December 1942.</p>
<p>In November, British forces <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/4/newsid_3564000/3564385.stm">had defeated the Germans</a> at El Alamein. The presence of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20160819">growing numbers of American GIs</a> in Britain and resolute Red Army <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-battle-of-stalingrad">resistance at Stalingrad</a> made it apparent that Allied victory must, eventually, come.</p>
<p>Acute shortages of festive drinks caused great concern, however. In a playful Christmas Eve reference to Sir William Beveridge’s <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/livinglearning/coll-9-health1/coll-9-health/">report on social security</a> which had been published to great acclaim on December 1, the Manchester Guardian offered its own “beverage report”. This lamented that “wines and spirits are not only scarce but dear”. The author regretted that his own supplies included “several bottles with less than one drink in each of them” – and he saw little prospect of obtaining fresh supplies.</p>
<p>In the Daily Mail, columnist Maurice Lane Norcott offered bitterly ironic Christmas greetings to “rabid teetotallers whose favourite printed notice in a world full of printed notices is: ‘Sorry, no beer today.’” </p>
<p>Turkeys were also in desperately short supply. The Communist Daily Worker predicted that only one customer in 300 would be able to obtain the traditional Christmas bird. The Times agreed that “many British households are wondering if they will get their turkey for Christmas”. </p>
<p>While generous American troops in the UK had surrendered their Thanksgiving turkeys, the Times feared it was too little too late: “We have grown accustomed to do without, and Christmas without a Turkey will inspire a gentle if not too serious a sadness”. It advised readers that they might have to eat beef “and we ought to deem ourselves lucky to get it”.</p>
<p>Sadly, there would be few Christmas puddings to follow. The <a href="https://museumcrush.org/how-the-ministry-of-food-managed-food-rationing-in-world-war-two/">Ministry of Food</a> had issued a declaration that a large number of puddings had been manufactured, but the Manchester Guardian denounced this as the ministry’s “Christmas joke”. Manufacturers had no ingredients to make puddings, and worried housewives were already calling their grocers to ask where they would find the puddings the ministry had promised them.</p>
<h2>Looking on the bright side</h2>
<p>The BBC’s weekly magazine, The Listener, regarded the lack of luxury as an opportunity to think about the true meaning of Christmas and contrast the hope it inspired with the state of the world. Cities were being “wrecked by concentrated bombing” and “whole sections of the community” were being “mercilessly put to death for no other reason than that of race or religion”. </p>
<p>Indeed, on December 17, Allied governments had revealed for the first time the true scale and nature of the Holocaust. Foreign secretary Anthony Eden <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/11/mps-to-mark-day-in-1942-when-the-commons-finally-recognised-the-holocaust">told the House of Commons</a> that the Germans “were now carrying into effect Hitler’s oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe”.</p>
<p>The Times attempted to raise its readers’ spirits with images of a nativity play in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields, American soldiers inspecting a huge Christmas tree in St Paul’s cathedral, and Miss Fay Compton as Prince Charming in Cinderella at the enormous Stoll Theatre in London’s West End.</p>
<p>But it was the American presence that offered the greatest inspiration to optimism. From her home in Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea, Times reader Gerda M.H. Morgan wrote to the editor to celebrate another important import from the US: “At this Christmas, when so great a number of our American ally are in Great Britain, it is pleasant to recall that Father Christmas himself first came to this country from the United States.” Morgan speculated that the sleigh loaded with presents and drawn by reindeer was, probably, also an American creation.</p>
<p>The Daily Mail offered the perspective of a soldier serving overseas in the form of a poem. It began:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tell me how it went, and if the kids had fun,<br>
It isn’t much like Christmas here, You don’t hang holly on a gun. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Mirror offered austerity Christmas game suggestions for children. These included “button matching” – hiding matching pairs of old buttons around the house and challenging the children to find them. “Black-out guess” involved identifying household objects by touch in complete darkness. It advised that “a raw sausage always produces shrieks of terror”.</p>
<p>In its edition published on Christmas Eve, The Listener offered a unifying wish that “in spite of all the horrors”, readers would summon “that store of essential humaneness that lies at the very root of civilised life”. If Britons could not do this, then the Christmas message would “remain an aspiration unfulfilled”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union and a member of the Editorial Board of the Conversation UK. His book, Reporting the Second World War - The Press and the People 1939-1945 will be published by Bloomsbury Academic on 9th February 2023</span></em></p>
By the fourth festive season into the war, rationing was biting – but good news from the front and the generosity of US soldiers helped keep morale buoyant.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192753
2022-10-19T14:28:24Z
2022-10-19T14:28:24Z
Doreen Lawrence and Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Daily Mail publisher underlines need for Leveson Inquiry part two
<p>One of the key moments of the 2011 Leveson Inquiry into press standards came when the Daily Mail’s then-editor, Paul Dacre, took to the witness box to accuse Hugh Grant of pursuing “mendacious smears driven by a hatred of the media”. Dacre was responding to Grant’s <a href="https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/hugh-grant-claims-evidence-links-mail-to-hacking/s2/a546816/">allegation</a> that a 2007 Mail on Sunday story could only have been obtained by hacking his voicemails. </p>
<p>The Mail has always vehemently denied any involvement with phone hacking or any other unlawful activities. So it came as a shock when, two weeks ago, a high-profile group including Prince Harry, Elton John, Liz Hurley and Baroness Doreen Lawrence <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/06/doreen-lawrence-prince-harry-and-others-launch-legal-action-against-daily-mail-publisher">announced</a> that they were launching a legal action against the Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers. </p>
<p>Their claims of unlawful activity by the papers go well beyond phone hacking to the alleged hiring of private investigators to bug cars and homes. They also include allegations of the accessing of bank accounts and other financial transactions through illicit means, and the payment of police officials, with corrupt links to private investigators, for inside information.</p>
<p>Without doubt, the most eye-catching name among the claimants is that of Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence. It was the Mail, at Dacre’s behest, which first splashed the names of Stephen’s alleged killers on its front page. As Guardian commentator Jane Martinson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/11/allegations-paul-dacre-daily-mail-peerage-travesty-doreen-lawrence">reminded</a> us, it is just five years since Baroness Lawrence sat next to Dacre at a banquet to celebrate his 25 years as Mail editor. </p>
<p>These allegations have been vehemently denied by the publisher. In a <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/doreen-lawrence-prince-harry-and-elton-john-allege-criminal-privacy-breaches-by-mail-group/">statement</a> which branded the claims as “unsubstantiated and defamatory”, Associated Newspapers said: “We utterly and unambiguously refute these preposterous smears.”</p>
<p>The legal process will now run its course. Within the next few weeks, these claimants will serve their “particulars of claim”, followed by the publisher’s defence. At this point, there will be more disclosures about the allegations (and the claimants’ evidence) as well as the Mail’s response. In the meantime, Dacre’s long-expected peerage has reportedly <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/former-daily-mail-editor-paul-dacre-is-dropped-from-peerages-list-skfcrh0k9">been delayed</a>.</p>
<p>However these cases develop, this new litigation serves as a reminder that the Leveson Inquiry is unfinished business. While the inquiry was prompted by revelations in July 2011 about News of the World journalists hacking the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, it was set up with an explicit two-part remit. Part one, looking generally at the culture and practices of the press, ended with the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/229039/0779.pdf">Leveson Report</a> in November 2012, and recommendations for a new framework of self-regulation.</p>
<p>But because police investigations into possible criminal behaviour were ongoing (and subsequently resulted in several trials), the first part could not address the details of precisely who authorised, committed or was a party to unlawful activity, nor to what extent any corruption extended to the police. The inquiry’s chair, Sir Brian Leveson, acknowledged that important lines of questioning were not pursued in the full expectation that they would be covered in part two, which had been explicitly promised by the then-prime minister, David Cameron. </p>
<h2>Unfinished business</h2>
<p>In the intervening ten years, Mirror Group has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/05/hugh-grant-wins-damages-from-mirror-phone-hacking-case">admitted</a> that senior editors and executives “actively turned a blind eye” to phone hacking on its newspapers, and have spent several hundred million pounds in settling claims. While Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) – publisher of the Sun and the now-defunct News of the World – has refused to make any such admission in relation to the Sun, it too continues to pay out vast sums in settlements and legal fees. </p>
<p>In December 2021, the actress Sienna Miller <a href="https://inforrm.org/2021/12/10/news-group-settle-news-of-the-world-and-sun-hacking-claims-statements-in-open-court/">called</a> her settlement from NGN “tantamount to an admission of liability on the part of the Sun”. Further phone hacking claims against the newspaper were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/11/the-sun-faces-fresh-claims-of-phone-hacking-during-rebekah-brooks-era">announced</a> just last week. </p>
<p>These claims may be historic, but those in senior editorial positions at the time remain influential in the industry. And yet nobody has been held accountable for extensive wrongdoing which – in the words of the Leveson report – “wreaked havoc in the lives of ordinary people”. Against such a murky backdrop of settlements, allegations and continuing claims of unlawful behaviour, any other industry would be facing a clamour for truth and accountability. </p>
<p>Not this time. On the contrary, virtually every UK newspaper has used its editorial columns to reject the case for part two, dismissing it as backward-looking and a irrelevant. In March 2018, the then-culture secretary, Matt Hancock, responded to ferocious press lobbying by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43240230">confirming</a> that Leveson part two would indeed be shelved. </p>
<p>But these new claims suggest that the second part of Leveson is still relevant. It was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/01/leveson-2-explained-what-was-it-meant-to-achieve">designed to examine</a> – once relevant criminal trials had finished – the relationships between journalists and the police, as well as between publishers and politicians and relevant regulatory bodies (such as the failed Press Complaints Commission) over the decade before the phone hacking scandal broke. </p>
<p>It was also supposed to investigate failures of corporate governance at newspaper groups which seemingly allowed misbehaviour to become routine.</p>
<p>Leveson followed a similar pattern to the Calcutt reports of <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/ilp15&div=31&id=&page=">1990</a> and <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/271963/2135.pdf">1993</a> which produced an equally scathing account of shocking press behaviour in the 1980s. Calcutt’s recommendations were also ignored after intense press lobbying, and the phone-hacking scandal was arguably a direct result of that political cowardice. Leveson part two could put an end to the cycle of press misbehaviour followed by weak and ineffectual political responses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192753/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The second part of the Leveson Inquiry was cancelled in 2018, but there is still unfinished business.
Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of Westminster
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/189638
2022-09-08T15:55:35Z
2022-09-08T15:55:35Z
Ukraine: how the UK press reported the Nazi invasion 1941-45
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483514/original/file-20220908-27908-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>During the second world war there were notable exceptions to the at times slavish patriotic <a href="https://history.blog.gov.uk/2014/09/12/chaos-and-censorship/">devotion the press showed to the government line</a>. Weekly political titles such as New Statesman and Nation, the Spectator and the Economist challenged government policy more consistently than daily newspapers. </p>
<p>These titles were read by intellectuals and ministers tolerated the circulation of critical ideas amongst such people. The political weeklies served as safety valves. Ministers who worked to exclude unpalatable news from mass circulation newspapers treated their publication of intelligent dissent as a way to burnish Britain’s democratic credentials. </p>
<p>This reassured Britain’s most important ally, the USA. The Economist’s depiction of Ukrainian nationalism between 1941 and 1945 exemplifies such journalism.</p>
<p>Today, Vladimir Putin deploys a false account of Ukraine’s role during the second world war to justify his invasion, insisting that Russian forces invaded to <a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-claim-to-rid-ukraine-of-nazis-is-especially-absurd-given-its-history-177959">cleanse Ukraine of Nazis</a>. Taking a similar line to that pronounced by Adolf Hitler when Germany seized Czechoslovakia, he claims his army is protecting minorities from persecution. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putins-claim-to-rid-ukraine-of-nazis-is-especially-absurd-given-its-history-177959">Putin's claim to rid Ukraine of Nazis is especially absurd given its history</a>
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<p>But Putin’s claim is false, and it contrasts starkly with the one offered by his Soviet predecessor, Josef Stalin, 80 years ago. Stalin promoted evidence of Ukrainian heroism in resisting the Nazi invaders. British newspapers followed his line, reporting the courage of Ukrainians who fought Germans as partisans as well as Red Army troops.</p>
<p>When German forces <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/22/newsid_3526000/3526691.stm">entered Ukraine in 1941</a>, the Soviet Union appealed to Ukrainians “to join up with the partisan bands or form new ones”. It urged them to wreak havoc and “kill the fascists like mad dogs”. </p>
<p>The headline in the Daily Telegraph on August 27 1941 broadcast the message from Soviet general Semyon Mikhaylovich Budenny: “Budenny’s Call to Ukraine - Join Guerillas, Kill Enemy”. </p>
<p>A Soviet communiqué published in the Manchester Guardian on August 29 celebrated Ukrainian heroism in a story headlined: “Street-by-street battle for Ukrainian Town: People’s Volunteer Force in Action”. </p>
<p>In ferocious fighting for a town identified only as “N”, partisans fought with “singular gallantry” alongside the Red Army. Volunteers recruited from factories “defended every street” and destroyed German tanks with hand grenades and petrol bombs.</p>
<h2>Providing nuance</h2>
<p>The Economist, meanwhile, was more sophisticated, recognising that the picture wasn’t quite as simple as plucky Ukrainians rising to a man or woman to fight the invading hordes. Planning to use Ukrainian nationalism against Russia, Germany had trained right-wing Ukrainian nationalist fighters. </p>
<p>Hitler’s hope was that his armies would be backed by a mass rising of Ukrainians against the USSR. Instead, in its story of September 6, headlined “The Ukrainian Trump Card”, the Economist acknowledged that there were no “peasants greeting their German liberators with flowers” and that Ukrainians were meeting the Wehrmacht with “harassing fire” and “scorched villages”. </p>
<p>The article charted how Hitler betrayed the minority of Ukrainians who supported nationalist plans to create a fascist state, suggesting he had miscalculated the situation. By abandoning the “obscure circles of zealous Ukrainian nationalist conspirators” who had been Nazi Germany’s “prospective quislings” Hitler had “achieved a negative result”. </p>
<p>His was a strategic error, because there was “no lack of resentment” of the USSR in Ukraine. It was “beyond doubt” that scope existed to exploit Ukrainian nationalist sentiment in the German interest. But, Hitler had squandered this potential “trump card”.</p>
<p>The impression that Ukraine had turned emphatically against Germany was widely promoted in the mainstream British press. Moscow and London portrayed Ukrainians as dogged in defence of their territory. </p>
<p>Thus, as the Red Army fought to liberate Leningrad in February 1942, The Times reported, in a February 13 1942 article headlined: “Grapple for Leningrad” that Ukrainian partisans were harrying German forces “in conjunction with large raiding parties” of regular Red Army cavalry. Crucially, such depictions portrayed Ukrainian fighters as citizens of the USSR. Ukrainian nationalism was treated as a corrupt ideal sponsored and promoted by Germany.</p>
<p>A Reuters report of the liberation of Kharkov, carried in the Guardian on March 1 1943 under the headline: “How the Nazis Ruled Kharkov” reported that young Ukrainian men in Kharkov had been offered a choice between “being shot or fighting in German uniforms”. </p>
<p>German officers told them: “We have freed the Ukraine; now you must defend it”. The report concludes, “The Germans issued a lot of Ukrainian nationalist propaganda … but it is obvious that they have killed any vestige of Ukrainian separatism there may have been.”</p>
<p>Newspapers acknowledged the existence of the fascist Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. But they made it plain that most Ukrainians fought alongside the Red Army. </p>
<p>Thus Lieutenant Colonel Vysokostrosky, special correspondent of Red Star, the journal of the Red Army, told the Guardian on November 30 how Ukrainian partisans joined Soviet paratroops to “paralyse the German rear” as Russian forces fought to cross the Dnipro river.</p>
<h2>Changing their tune</h2>
<p>Until Hitler invaded Russia, the British press had depicted Stalin as a bullying ogre, guilty of oppression and massacre. His Soviet Union was a vile aggressor, its army cruel and incompetent. </p>
<p>The turnaround described by the Times on June 23 1941 under the headline “How Russia was Told” when it told its readers that “one touch of Hitler makes the whole world kin” was embraced by the Ministry of Information and the newspapers it briefed. Once Britain and the USSR were allies, coverage of Russia and its leader became uncritical to the point of sycophancy. </p>
<p>Newspapers were reluctant to question the Russian depiction of Ukraine as a contented republic of the Soviet Union. British cinemas showed Russian films such as Battle of the Ukraine, and Partisans, which depicted heroic resistance in Ukraine. Newspapers portrayed Ukrainian nationalism as an exclusively Nazi creation.</p>
<p>In fact, the Ukrainian nationalist card was less formidable than the Economist imagined. They included 8,000 Ukrainian members of the Waffen SS Galizien Division and were guilty of atrocious war crimes. Pro-German nationalist forces were numerically insignificant compared with the 4.5 million Ukrainians who fought with the Red Army against Hitler.</p>
<p>The military value of Ukrainian nationalist backing for the Nazi cause was negligible. Nazi Germany’s major allies in the invasion of the USSR were Romania and Hungary. Putin’s insistence that Ukrainians are Nazis goes against historical fact and is profoundly cynical.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, in setting itself apart from mainstream newspapers that parroted Stalinist propaganda passed on by the British government, the Economist offered valuable context to those who wanted a deeper understanding of the conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189638/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union and a member of the Editorial Board of The Conversation UK. His book, Reporting the Second World War - The Press and the People 1939-1945 will be published by Bloomsbury Academic on 9th February 2023 </span></em></p>
While most daily newspapers presented the conflict as black and white, weeklies presented readers with a more sophisticated and nuanced take.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157949
2021-03-30T18:48:43Z
2021-03-30T18:48:43Z
When Neville Chamberlain tried to ‘no-platform’ the Yorkshire Post
<p>Few in academia will profess ignorance of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-safe-spaces-at-universities-are-a-threat-to-free-speech-94547">no-platforming</a>”. This expression of ideological zealotry seeks to restrict debate to orthodoxies with which its supporters sympathise. It restricts freedom of speech upon which, since the Enlightenment, democrats have relied to test ideas and challenge assumptions. </p>
<p>It is a new way of describing the old sin of censorship which, in the UK, has more often been deployed in the interests of reaction than progress. Neville Chamberlain, Britain’s Conservative prime minister between May 1937 and May 1940, deployed it systematically – and sometimes maliciously – in his efforts to appease Hitler.</p>
<p>From the moment Chamberlain entered Downing Street he worked to make the press support his policy of appeasing the dictators. In <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2124871?seq=1">his book</a> Twilight of Truth: Chamberlain, Appeasement and Manipulation of the Press, Richard Cockett describes how this ideologically committed appeaser curbed the hostility of British newspapers towards Nazi Germany and converted most of them to his cause.</p>
<p>Chamberlain tamed parliamentary lobby journalists through his dedicated press officer, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neville-chamberlains-adviser-took-spinning-for-the-pm-to-new-and-dangerous-levels-147533">George Steward</a>. Sir Joseph Ball, the chairman of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/175089?seq=1">Conservative Research Department</a> between 1930 and 1939, helped to cajole newspapers into supporting and promoting the prime minister’s approach. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-neville-chamberlains-adviser-took-spinning-for-the-pm-to-new-and-dangerous-levels-147533">How Neville Chamberlain's adviser took spinning for the PM to new and dangerous levels</a>
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<p>Chamberlain himself maintained close friendships with <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Geoffrey-Dawson">Geoffrey Dawson</a>, editor of the supremely influential Times, and also with the owners of the Sunday Times, Daily Sketch and Observer. Steward and Ball helped with the mass-market Daily Mail, Daily Express, News Chronicle and Daily Express.</p>
<h2>Conservative pressure</h2>
<p>To Chamberlain’s fury, there was one Conservative broadsheet that steadfastly refused to toe the line: the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yorkshire-Post">Yorkshire Post</a>. This proud regional broadsheet was not simply aligned with the Conservative interest. It was published by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yorkshire-Post">Yorkshire Conservative Newspaper Company</a> and run to support the political and financial needs of Yorkshire Conservatives. Nevertheless, <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/57595/">Arthur Mann</a>, its editor between 1919 and 1939, performed with genius the role of a truly sovereign newspaper editor.</p>
<p>Mann believed fervently in <a href="https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/12185/2/Fourth%20estate-%20April%2013.pdf">fourth estate theory</a>: his newspaper had a role to play in political society. It must act as a link between public opinion and government. Mann considered it his duty to follow the evidence offered by his reporters, correspondents and columnists. </p>
<p>These included Charles Tower, the paper’s chief leader writer – previously a correspondent in Germany. In Vienna they had LR Murray, who had met eyewitnesses to Hitler’s intolerant belligerence. John Dundas, a recent graduate of Christ Church College, Oxford, who had just completed his studies in Heidelberg, wrote on foreign policy.</p>
<p>His team gave Mann insight. Independence of mind and faith in journalism’s duty to democracy compelled him to advance arguments that infuriated his proprietors and many readers. </p>
<p>Wealthier newspapers with larger readerships bowed the knee to Chamberlain and depicted appeasement as the only realistic option. They portrayed the prime minister as the statesman who would make it work. Mann demurred assertively. </p>
<p>The prime minister and <a href="https://www.natwestgroup.com/heritage/people/rupert-evelyn-beckett.html">Rupert Beckett</a>, then the chairman of the Yorkshire Conservative Newspaper Association, encouraged Mann to keep his opinions out of his newspaper and support the government. Instead, when the pair met briefly on the morning of March 21 1938, the editor encouraged the prime minister to be robust in his dealings with Hitler. Chamberlain’s response was exquisitely rude. He declined Mann’s advice and exited the room declaring “I’m afraid I have an appointment at 11.15 and it is now 11.14”. </p>
<p>Six months before appeasement’s nadir at the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Munich-Agreement">Munich Conference</a>, a Yorkshire Post editorial accused British ministers of harbouring delusions about Nazi Germany. </p>
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<img alt="Picture from German Feberal Archives showing then British prime minister Neville Chamberlain with German leader Adolph Hitler, Munich 1938." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392623/original/file-20210330-17-1507h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392623/original/file-20210330-17-1507h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392623/original/file-20210330-17-1507h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392623/original/file-20210330-17-1507h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392623/original/file-20210330-17-1507h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392623/original/file-20210330-17-1507h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392623/original/file-20210330-17-1507h2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Neville Chamberlain wanted to avoid war at all costs. Adolf Hitler felt differently.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">German Federal Archives</span></span>
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<p>Noting that “some of the worst Jew-baiters in Germany were even then arriving in Austria”, Mann deployed the Yorkshire Post’s leader column to express his fear that the British cabinet contained men who were “temperamentally unfitted to grasp the realities of the international problem and still less qualified firmly to deal with them”.</p>
<h2>Standing firm</h2>
<p>As German demands intensified in July 1938, and Hitler reserved the right to treat Czechoslovakia “as a thorn in the side of Germany which the Reich, accordingly, has a right in self-defence to rip out and destroy”, the Yorkshire Post insisted that appeasement was futile. Following the Anglo-French betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich in September, the Yorkshire Post described appeasement as “indistinguishable from a surrender to threats”. Its architects had a “tragic lack of conviction”.</p>
<p>Now under intense pressure from his proprietors and accused of endangering the nation and misleading the public, Mann pressed on. An editorial headlined: “Encouragement of Aggression” appeared in the Yorkshire Post on December 8 1938. This condemned Chamberlain’s foreign policy: by surrendering to force, the prime minister had “repeatedly encouraged aggression”. </p>
<p>A prime minister who was “by nature unfitted to deal with Dictators” had ignored advice from experts qualified to advise him. His policy was “threatening the safety of the realm”. It was “likely in the near future to threaten it with danger still greater”.</p>
<p>Newspapers rarely flatter their rivals, but the liberal Manchester Guardian, which agreed with Mann in his stance on appeasement, captured the courage and wisdom of Mann’s Yorkshire Post. It described “soundness of judgement, tenacity of purpose, loyalty to principle” and the courage to be unpopular “and even to offend the Party if the Party were not right”. High praise, but no less than Mann deserved. </p>
<p>He was an heroic editor and a beacon of excellence in journalism. As debates around freedom of speech animate Britain’s universities, we should celebrate the value of dissenting opinions and the courage of those who refuse to be silenced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Editorial Board of The Conversation UK and also of the Free Speech Union and the Society of Editors. </span></em></p>
The Post’s editor, Arthur Mann, withstood extreme pressure to fall in with orthodox political thinking over appeasement with Nazi Germany.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151726
2020-12-23T18:55:31Z
2020-12-23T18:55:31Z
Carols, ration books and bomb shelters: how Britain celebrated Christmas in 1940
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374442/original/file-20201211-19-fjtt5e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C1%2C1196%2C916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Still image from the 1940 propaganda film 'Christmas Under Fire' produced by the Crown Film Unit.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BFI Archive</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At Christmas 1939, Britons had been able to maintain a semblance of normality. The blackout prevented displays of lighted Christmas trees in front windows, but there was no rationing and Britain’s key ally, France, remained unconquered behind the allegedly impregnable Maginot Line. </p>
<p>Following the fall of France, the evacuation at Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, Christmas 1940 was much bleaker – the first real wartime Christmas. It took place in the middle of the Blitz. In December, the Luftwaffe attacked Southampton, Bristol, Sheffield and Leicester. Manchester took heavy pounding on the night of December 22/23 and again on Christmas Eve. Rationing was beginning to bite hard as the German occupation of Europe and blockade by U-boats cut off important sources of supply.</p>
<p>As Historian Angus Calder <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/103/1039375/the-myth-of-the-blitz/9780712698207.html">reminds us</a>, in a blatant but compelling propaganda film produced by the Crown Film Unit, Christmas Under Fire, the American correspondent Quentin Reynolds described the atmosphere as the Ministry of Information wished it to be depicted.</p>
<p>“This year” began his script, “England celebrates Christmas underground … The stable in Bethlehem was a shelter too.” </p>
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<p>But the nation was determined that its children should enjoy the festive season and Reynold’s sonorous tones insisted that Britain remained “unbeaten, unconquered, unafraid”. The use of carols from King’s College Choir reminded Britain – and the world – that precious traditions endured. </p>
<h2>Scrooges and Santas</h2>
<p>Contemporary newspapers give a fuller flavour of the public mood. In the mass circulation Daily Mirror on December 16, columnist Kathleen Pearcey worried that women readers might feel guilty about enjoying the festive season. “The idea that giving or going to a party in war time puts you in the Fifth Column Class is fast dying out”, she explained. “To have fun, to dress up, to laugh and play games is sense. It’s Christmas and the only man who matters is coming home on leave.”</p>
<p>The popular left-wing daily did not ignore the hardships imposed by strict rationing. Three days before Christmas, “Voice of the People” columnist Stuart Campbell demanded that the minister for food, Lord Woolton “start a clean-up drive on the people who are making us pay for the war through our stomachs”. Campbell warned that food racketeers were “The Scrooges of 1940.” He accused them of treating Christmas as “a good time to make money” by ratcheting up prices so that only the wealthy could afford festive treats.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="1940 photo of a soldier dressed as Santa Claus giving presents to a group of children." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374428/original/file-20201211-22-95cgfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374428/original/file-20201211-22-95cgfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374428/original/file-20201211-22-95cgfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374428/original/file-20201211-22-95cgfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374428/original/file-20201211-22-95cgfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374428/original/file-20201211-22-95cgfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374428/original/file-20201211-22-95cgfm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Soldiers give a Christmas party for children, 1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">War Office official photographers/Imperial War Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But hardship was a reality. Practical gifts such as gardening tools and fertiliser were popular Christmas gifts. In a modest gesture of official generosity, the tea ration was doubled for one week. Imported luxuries such as wine were available only to the wealthy. Nevertheless, the Mirror’s editorial on Christmas Eve insisted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nothing except the trump of Doomsday will ever prevent the English people from determining to be “merrie” at Christmas… In this second Christmas of the second war to end war, we hope they will succeed.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Stille nacht</h2>
<p>The Conservative establishment Daily Telegraph insisted that life was difficult in Hitler’s Germany too. It republished dispatches sent from Berlin by American correspondents. A story originally filed for the New York Times and reprinted in the Daily Telegraph on Christmas Eve 1940 revealed that Christmas shopping was difficult in the capital of the Reich: “Many articles that in normal times are bought as gifts are not available under the totalitarian war economy.”</p>
<p>The popular Conservative paper Daily Mail took a candid approach. Its Christmas Eve editorial lamented: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We shall not hear the once familiar church bells tomorrow … They are muted, waiting for a sterner call, the summons (please God that it may never come) to defend our homes against the invader.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was a potent reminder that, despite a morale-boosting recent victory for outnumbered British forces against the Italian Tenth Army at the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a1124759.shtml">Battle of Sidi Barrani</a> in early December, the UK was fighting for survival. The Soviet Union remained linked to Nazi Germany by the <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/german-soviet-non-aggression-pact-1939-upset-balance-of-power/">non-aggression pact</a> of August 1939. The continued presence of American correspondents in Berlin confirmed the reluctance of the US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, to lead his country into war.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of sailors in uniform stirring a large cooking pot with a chef." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374419/original/file-20201211-13-1ctjo29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C28%2C799%2C574&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374419/original/file-20201211-13-1ctjo29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374419/original/file-20201211-13-1ctjo29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374419/original/file-20201211-13-1ctjo29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374419/original/file-20201211-13-1ctjo29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374419/original/file-20201211-13-1ctjo29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374419/original/file-20201211-13-1ctjo29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stirring the pud: sailors at the Royal Navy barracks at Devonport, England, November 1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imperial War Museum archive</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On Christmas Eve, the Daily Mail advised its readers that their “first thought” must be for those “to whom no respite of any kind from duty is possible at Christmas or any other time until peace is won”. It identified them as “The RAF, the Royal Navy, men of the Merchant Service, troops under arms, anti-aircraft men at their guns, the Home Guard, ARP Services, wardens and firemen, doctors and nurses.” </p>
<p>The Times, meanwhile, offered a sincere call to Christian piety and reminded its influential readership that while “Christmas makes us realise keenly that war takes away many of life’s pleasant accessories”, our more serious nature should compel us to understand “how trivial these deprivations should seem when the destiny of the world is at stake, how willingly our small sacrifices should be made and how unworthy are grumbles about them.” </p>
<p>From bombed Manchester, the liberal Manchester Guardian offered a glimpse of how the still-new technology of radio could overcome the challenges of distance. It estimated that more than 300 million listeners throughout the British Empire and USA would hear a special BBC broadcast on Christmas Day. Broadcast as “Christmas Under Fire”, this innovative programme united British servicemen around the world. </p>
<p>The Guardian noted that soldiers in Palestine would be heard singing the carol O Come All Ye Faithful “from among the olive trees and vineyards near Bethlehem”.</p>
<p>The Guardian’s report also drew attention to the continuing consequences of mass evacuation. Listeners to Christmas Under Fire would also hear “bombed out London mothers, their children and friends” thanking “their hosts at the end of their first war time Christmas dinner in the country”. </p>
<p>Back in Britain’s battered cities, many families would spend Christmas Eve in air raid shelters.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated post-publication to amend an error. It originally referred to Theodore Roosevelt where it now correctly mentions Franklin D Roosevelt</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union </span></em></p>
Despite rationing and the Blitz, Christmas on the domestic front in 1940 was cheerful and optimistic.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151448
2020-12-08T15:12:06Z
2020-12-08T15:12:06Z
Coronavirus: people turn to their local news sites in record numbers during pandemic
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373594/original/file-20201208-13-h0hsq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=164%2C272%2C4240%2C2893&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wozzie via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Local newspapers have seen sales of their print copies <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/dizzying-decline-britain-s-local-newspapers-do-you-want-bad-news-or-good-news-9702684.html">in decline for decades</a> and, with regional newspaper groups regularly <a href="https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2020/news/redundancies-in-store-at-newsquest-as-ceo-admits-staffing-cannot-return-to-pre-covid-levels/">cutting staff</a>, it has felt like UK local news journalism might be on the way out – to be replaced by WhatsApp groups or Facebook chat.</p>
<p>But interest in news from people’s own neighbourhoods has prompted a significant digital spike this year. Hundreds of thousands of people have turned to their local newspaper websites during the pandemic for a clearer understanding of the local implications of this national crisis.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nottinghampost.com/">Nottinghamshire Live</a> site, run by Reach Plc, has just seen its highest numbers ever in a single month, 25 million page views, in October this year. The second-highest month ever was in April 2020.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1336261946350428165"}"></div></p>
<p>At the <a href="https://www.bishopsstortfordindependent.co.uk/">Bishop’s Stortford Independent</a>, a weekly paper in Hertfordshire, the monthly web audience increased from 260,000 in January to 360,000 in October. The newspaper team was adding more stories to the website than previously, and also launched an app as a reaction to the demand for stories.</p>
<p>Newsquest, one of the biggest owners of regional UK media, announced in early December it is to turn its <a href="https://www.newsquest.co.uk/news/oldham-times">weekly paper in Oldham into a daily</a>, the company said one of the reasons was that “the title has seen record audience numbers online over the last six months”.</p>
<h2>Local voices</h2>
<p>With millions confined to their homes during lockdowns, where do you turn to during the pandemic if you want to find out whether the local surgeries are open or where you can buy a toilet roll? Day-to-day details about where to find a COVID testing centre or council grants were at the heart of local news over the past nine months.</p>
<p>“The restrictions are so local that the only place you can find out the information you need for where you live is from your local publisher. It is affecting peoples’ lives in an extreme way,” said Natalie Fahy, editor of Nottinghamshire Live and the Nottingham Post newspaper.</p>
<p>Alastair Machray, editor-in-chief of the <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/">Liverpool Echo</a>, told me: “We saw it very much as our responsibility to lift the clouds of confusion by writing explanatory content.”</p>
<p>Tracey Bagshaw, group editor of the <a href="http://www.justregional.co.uk/">Just Regional group</a>, which includes local news magazines in north Norfolk, said that a lot of what was published at the beginning of the pandemic was “very much in the information mode.</p>
<p>"And it just seemed important, because a lot of people were saying we don’t know, and it was an uncertain time”, she said, adding that: “people wanted news immediately. They don’t want to wait until Friday, to find out what was happening. They wanted to know, on Tuesday morning.”</p>
<p>An upside from the past few months has been more interaction with readers – which has allowed news sites to learn more about their readers wanted, who they were, and what sort of stories they were searching for. “So you’d know exactly sort of how a post was doing, what stories were – and we’re actually picking up comments from readers,” said Bagshaw.</p>
<h2>A matter of trust</h2>
<p>When it comes to the vital issue of trusting information, there is still an important point of difference between local papers and WhatsApp groups. Newspapers and sites run by trained journalists have a commitment to fact-checking, asking challenging questions of local authorities and digging into a local issue. </p>
<p>During the pandemic, most local news sites published a mix of detail about how hospitals were coping and case numbers, but also focused on how people were helping each other. The positive stories about communities started to attract significant numbers of readers, too. Said Bagshaw: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There were lots of pictures of people painting rainbows and delivering food and, you know, just helping others. Alongside the stories about how local buildings are being turned into temporary mortuaries or being turned into temporary accommodation for the homeless.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Local news companies also <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/innovation-and-sharper-focus-how-local-news-weathering-coronavirus-storm">tried out new ideas during the pandemic</a>, some offering print subscriptions as gifts, others trying out technology to record interviews without leaving home or new software to keep reporters in touch with each other.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Shetland Times newspaper sits on a pile of UK national papers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373597/original/file-20201208-15-111e4mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373597/original/file-20201208-15-111e4mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373597/original/file-20201208-15-111e4mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373597/original/file-20201208-15-111e4mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373597/original/file-20201208-15-111e4mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373597/original/file-20201208-15-111e4mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373597/original/file-20201208-15-111e4mz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Local papers: sometimes they provide all the news you need to know.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew J Shearer via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Whether this rise in digital traffic signals a new era for UK local news is unclear. Certainly, it could just be a reaction to the crisis, and reader numbers could slip back to previous levels. But with more of the population likely to work <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a2fd84a8-172e-4c9d-9824-0504e86f2da1">from home in years to come</a>, interest in the local community may become increasingly important to people who no longer spend significant parts of their week on long commutes.</p>
<p>Machray believes that the audience will continue to grow. “My sense is that the reputation of the regional media has been enhanced massively through COVID due to the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/calendar/future-local-and-regional-news">efforts and expertise</a>, they’ve expended on behalf of their readership.”</p>
<h2>Generating revenue</h2>
<p>But as well as holding on to their bigger online audiences, companies still need <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/innovation-and-sharper-focus-how-local-news-weathering-coronavirus-storm">to find new revenue streams</a> to replace levels of advertising in their print copies. For most digital advertising has not delivered this, and print sales continue to fall.</p>
<p>One inspiration is Mark Thompson, who stepped down as chief executive of the New York Times this summer after turning around the newspaper’s finances. During his time there, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jul/22/mark-thompson-steps-down-as-chief-executive-of-new-york-times">paying subscribers rose to five million</a> and it added more journalists, going against the industry trend.</p>
<p>Closer to home is another model, the family-owned news business <a href="https://www.iliffemedia.co.uk">Iliffe</a>, which added four new local papers to its portfolio in the last 18 months. The company’s chief executive, Edward Iliffe, said the key to their success is a focus on the <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/iliffe-media-done-expanding-focus-on-local/">“parochial”</a>.</p>
<p>His newspapers have drawn on old-style journalism with council reports, local football results – and, before the pandemic struck, were even providing a slice of cake for readers who popped into their town centre offices.</p>
<p>Finding the right balance of news may help local news teams work out what their future needs to look like.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachael Jolley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Local news websites have offered essential details on how to understand COVID rules and where to buy toilet rolls.
Rachael Jolley, Research Fellow at the Centre for Freedom of the Media and Visiting Fellow in Journalism, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150809
2020-11-26T11:59:35Z
2020-11-26T11:59:35Z
IPSO: press regulator’s ‘guidance’ for reporting on Muslims is not fit for purpose
<p>It shouldn’t be controversial to say journalists have failed in reporting on Muslims and Islam in the UK. Inaccurate use of terms and frequently negative constructions can make the religion seem strange, dangerous, or simply not British. Scholars <a href="http://orca.cf.ac.uk/53005/">have shown how</a> journalists frequently associate Islam with terrorism and extremism. Though the news is often “bad”, it is exceptionally so when it concerns Muslims.</p>
<p>This is not a new phenomenon. Postcolonial literary critic Edward Said, writing about news coverage in the 1970s and 1980s, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/159777/covering-islam-by-edward-w-said/">argued that</a> as far as most news reports are concerned: “Islam is a threat to Western civilisation.” This assessment came two decades before 9/11, which steeply ramped up the media interest in and suspicion of Muslims in the UK. </p>
<p>This has endured, leading to a double standard evident in the contrasting reporting of the murder of MP Jo Cox by a white man with far-right views, and that of soldier Lee Rigby. Cox’s killer was described as a <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-mail/20160617/281599534784997">“timid gardener”</a> while the men who killed Rigby were branded <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2329791/Blood-hands-hatred-inside-London-terror-suspect-obsessed-Islam-schoolboy.html">“Islamic fanatics”</a>.</p>
<p>For British Muslims, this has led to a feeling of unease in the country where they live and where most were born. Islamophobia monitoring group <a href="https://tellmamauk.org/">TellMAMA</a> has argued there is a link between <a href="https://tellmamauk.org/tell-mama-annual-report-2018-_-normalising-hate/">media narratives and hate crimes</a> in Britain. Individuals at the centre of high-profile news stories can lose <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/times-apologises-and-pays-libel-damages-to-imam-who-appeared-on-bbc-debate/">their reputations</a>, <a href="https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/governors-moseley-trojan-horse-school-9593307">their jobs</a>, or even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/11/shamima-begums-uk-citizenship-should-be-restored-court-told">their citizenship</a>.</p>
<p>Knowing this, scholars have advocated for improved reporting practices. Civil society groups <a href="https://cfmm.org.uk/">monitor the press</a> and can equip communities to <a href="https://www.mend.org.uk/resources-and-publications/media-toolkit/">manage press queries and complain about poor coverage</a>. But the private press isn’t answerable to such groups but to regulators. </p>
<p>The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) was created following the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/leveson-2804">Leveson Inquiry</a> to replace the Press Complaints Commission. To the dismay of groups such as <a href="https://hackinginquiry.org/a-response-to-the-leveson-consultation-part-5-the-public-benefits-of-section-40/">victims’ rights advocates</a>, government regulation of the press was not adopted. </p>
<p>Instead, <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2016/10/25/press-regulation-post-leveson-where-are-we-now/">a new voluntary regime was established</a>. News organisations chose their regulator, agreed to follow their code of practice, and faced penalties for breaches. IPSO was the biggest and, for critics, <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2015/03/16/moses-theory-for-ipso-less-independence-not-more/">the friendliest to publishers</a>.</p>
<p>IPSO has just published its long-promised <a href="https://www.ipso.co.uk/member-publishers/guidance-for-journalists-and-editors/guidance-on-reporting-of-muslims-and-islam/">guidance for reporting on Muslims and Islam</a>. The document discusses how to apply the Editors’ Code of Practice to articles on these subjects, with a focus on accuracy and discrimination. </p>
<p>This effort has been mounting for a couple of years. In autumn 2018, I joined a working group that was consulted as IPSO drafted the guidance. I’ll keep the text of draft documents and group conversations confidential, as requested, but I will contrast the form I hoped the document would take with what was eventually published. </p>
<p>IPSO’s Code is what binds the members. Bespoke guidance doesn’t add to or supersede the code. Rather, it highlights with specific examples where journalists might trip up in reporting a complex, sensitive and newsworthy topic. For IPSO to provide guidance on Muslims and Islam is a sensible response to a social fact.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ruling-on-fatima-manji-is-further-proof-that-ipso-fails-as-a-press-regulator-64923">Ruling on Fatima Manji is further proof that IPSO fails as a press regulator</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But in September 2019, the thinktank Policy Exchange, which had obtained a copy of the guidance, <a href="https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/eroding-the-free-press/">published a report</a> calling it an erosion of press freedom. IPSO <a href="https://www.ipso.co.uk/news-press-releases/news/responses-to-spectator-and-telegraph-articles-on-draft-guidance-on-reporting-of-islam/">defended its decision</a> to prepare guidance and rejected the claim it was setting new rules for reporting on Muslims.</p>
<p>But at that point, the work seemed to stop. IPSO had planned to publish its guidance in 2019. Instead, 2020 came with no further news. A new chair took over at the regulator. And of course, COVID-19 disrupted everything. Yet I believe the attack from Policy Exchange also disrupted this work, delaying it and contributing to a significantly different product. The “chilling effect” that Policy Exchange worried would bind journalists has instead bound the regulator.</p>
<h2>Toothless tiger</h2>
<p>The guidance provides basic demographic details on Muslims in Britain and explains key terms. It identifies questions for journalists to consider as they prepare their stories. This is welcome.</p>
<p>But it says little about sourcing practices, and given a lack of familiarity with Islam for both journalists and their readers, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0163443716686941">the choice of sources</a> has a big impact on the story. Journalists are reminded of diversity among Muslims and encouraged to consider a source’s track record in public statements. But the guidance doesn’t ask journalists to consider a source’s claim to authority or how representative their views might be – and these are essential questions for reporting a complex topic such as Islam.</p>
<p>What the guidance does offer, and in abundance, are soothing statements that journalists are free to write what they wish, so long as it’s accurate and doesn’t discriminate against an individual. The right to shock and offend is noted several times in different ways. Journalists are reminded that the code “does not prohibit prejudicial and pejorative references to a particular religion” and that they are free to publish comment and even conjecture – so long as it is distinguished from fact.</p>
<p>The substance of this is to say: “Don’t worry – you can still be nasty to Muslims in general.” And this has been baked into a document intended to provide guidance for what IPSO’s CEO <a href="https://www.ipso.co.uk/news-press-releases/news/responses-to-spectator-and-telegraph-articles-on-draft-guidance-on-reporting-of-islam/">Matt Tee described as</a> “local papers, often produced with a small, less experienced staff who may value such assistance”.</p>
<p>In his foreword to the Policy Exchange report, <a href="https://policyexchange.org.uk/author/trevor-phillips/">Sir Trevor Phillips</a> – a former journalist and chair of the Runnymede Trust when it prepared its <a href="https://www.runnymedetrust.org/companies/17/74/Islamophobia-A-Challenge-for-Us-All.html">1997 report on Islamophobia</a> – worries that IPSO “is well on the way to becoming a servant of a small, unrepresentative element of Muslim opinion”. </p>
<p>On the contrary, the regulator is once again behaving like the servant of private news organisations, taking pains to assure them they can continue the business-as-usual practice of reporting on Muslims. The kind of reporting that <a href="https://theconversation.com/ruling-on-fatima-manji-is-further-proof-that-ipso-fails-as-a-press-regulator-64923">left Channel 4 presenter Fatima Manji without satisfaction</a> when she complained about a column in The Sun she alleged was discriminatory.</p>
<p>Deference to the news industry is what led <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17228561">to the abolition of the PCC</a> and was a key question for the Leveson Inquiry. Those reforms are still wanting – and wanted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150809/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Munnik receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>
Press reports about Islam have often been misleading or discriminatory. This new advice does little to help journalists avoid that.
Michael Munnik, Lecturer in Social Science Theories and Methods, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147533
2020-10-08T14:59:59Z
2020-10-08T14:59:59Z
How Neville Chamberlain’s adviser took spinning for the PM to new and dangerous levels
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362430/original/file-20201008-14-1d3cb6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C1%2C794%2C591&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Neville Chamberlain wanted to avoid war at all costs. Adolf Hitler felt differently.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">German Federal Archives</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If the distinguished investigative author Tom Bower is correct, Dominic Cummings is a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8800967/PM-agreed-Dominic-Cummingss-terrorist-demands-total-control-No-10s-admin-machine.html">uniquely powerful Downing Street adviser</a> who has won an election and remains determined to deliver Brexit and “revolutionise Britain’s decrepit government machine”. But if intense loyalty to a prime minister and his cause are the qualities of a truly dedicated special adviser, Cummings has a powerful predecessor who is almost forgotten today.</p>
<p>Unlike Cummings, George Steward, the personal press officer to Neville Chamberlain (British prime minister between May 1937 and May 1940), was a career civil servant. But he used every trick in the spin doctor’s book to defeat the Foreign Office’s opposition to his employer’s policy of appeasement. The media historian Richard Cockett describes in his book, <a href="http://richardcockett.co.uk/book/twilight-of-truth-chamberlain-appeasement-and-the-manipulation-of-the-press/">Twilight of Truth</a>, how Steward helped Chamberlain curb the hostility of British newspapers towards Nazi Germany and converted most of them to active support for appeasement. </p>
<p>James Margach, then the lobby correspondent of the Times, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0491020449/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0">has described</a> how Chamberlain worked “to manipulate the press into supporting his policy of peace at all costs”. And Steward was willing to go beyond spin. On Wednesday, November 23, 1938, MI5 spotted him sneaking into the German embassy on London’s Carlton House Terrace. There, between the hours of 1.15pm and 3.50pm, Steward conducted <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/65227/3/__gort_WHR_tl54_My%20Files_Steward%20BJR.pdf">private negotiations with the Nazi regime</a>.</p>
<p>Inside the embassy, George Steward met Dr Fritz Hesse, press attaché and confidant of Joachim von Ribbentrop, then Hitler’s minister of foreign affairs. MI5 had an additional informant inside the embassy. This invaluable source reported that Steward visited as “a representative of the PM”.</p>
<p>The intelligence agency obtained a complete version of the report Hesse sent to von Ribbentrop. It explained that George Steward had offered concessions that could “serve as the basis for a General Anglo-German understanding”. Steward said that these should be negotiated “direct between the Fuhrer and Chamberlain”. Dr Hesse <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/65227/3/__gort_WHR_tl54_My%20Files_Steward%20BJR.pdf">reported that</a>: “Great Britain is now ready … to accept practically everything from us and to fulfil our every wish”.</p>
<p>Whether the man, described in MI5’s report as “5ft 9in tall” and “of medium build” with blue eyes and “a slight squint in his right eye”, was acting on his own initiative or at Chamberlain’s request the records do not reveal. But Chamberlain refused to dismiss Steward when the foreign secretary Lord Halifax – despite his own tendency towards appeasement and at the insistence of his own senior adviser – confronted the prime minister with MI5’s report of Steward’s clandestine meeting. Steward continued to work for Chamberlain until the latter’s premiership ended in May 1940.</p>
<h2>Spin doctor</h2>
<p>Since joining Chamberlain’s Downing Street team in 1937, Steward had <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/65227/3/__gort_WHR_tl54_My%20Files_Steward%20BJR.pdf">manipulated parliamentary lobby correspondents</a> to present appeasement as the only practical policy. This he achieved by undermining the long-established Westminster tradition whereby senior political journalists spoke freely to MPs, ministers and civil servants. Steward decided that all significant news about government policy must reach lobby correspondents from his lips or those of a loyal minister. </p>
<p>He turned his own frequent lobby briefings into the key source of political news. To remain in the know, lobby correspondents had to attend. And, as lobby rules required, they reported what Steward said without attribution, thus conveying the impression that it was an unalloyed fact.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Man in three-piece suit and hat carrying briefcase and umbrella with aircraft in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362458/original/file-20201008-16-1jcb3ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362458/original/file-20201008-16-1jcb3ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362458/original/file-20201008-16-1jcb3ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362458/original/file-20201008-16-1jcb3ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362458/original/file-20201008-16-1jcb3ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362458/original/file-20201008-16-1jcb3ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362458/original/file-20201008-16-1jcb3ni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Foreign office mandarin, Sir Alexander Cadogan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Evidence in the national archives reveals that Sir Alexander Cadogan, permanent under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office, believed <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/65227/3/__gort_WHR_tl54_My%20Files_Steward%20BJR.pdf">Steward’s conciliatory approach to the Nazi regime</a> could “only result in discomfiting the moderates in Germany, in confirming the extremists in power, and in some bogus settlement which will be the beginning of the end of the British empire, chloroformed as it will be by a totally false impression of security”. </p>
<p>If that was too extreme a fear, there can be no question that Steward’s loyalty to Chamberlain was at least as intense as that of excellent Downing Street communications chiefs such as Tony Blair’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/jul/08/books.labour">Alastair Campbell</a> or Margaret Thatcher’s <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/sir-bernard-ingham-the-uncivil-servant-112142.html">Bernard Ingham</a>. At a time when nearly 80% of British households <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2012.680810">read a daily national newspaper</a>, he bent the Westminster and Whitehall lobby correspondents to his will and ruthlessly crushed a counter-briefing operation run by his rival, <a href="https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-55366">Reginald “Rex” Leeper</a>, at the anti-appeasement Foreign Office.</p>
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<img alt="Painting of a middle-aged man in a suit holding a book." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362459/original/file-20201008-20-1gnc446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362459/original/file-20201008-20-1gnc446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362459/original/file-20201008-20-1gnc446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362459/original/file-20201008-20-1gnc446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362459/original/file-20201008-20-1gnc446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362459/original/file-20201008-20-1gnc446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362459/original/file-20201008-20-1gnc446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sir Reginald Wildig Allen (‘Rex’) Leeper by Walter Stoneman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© National Portrait Gallery, London</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Leeper had gathered around him a dedicated team of diplomatic correspondents who regurgitated his briefings accurately but unattributed. When their newspapers bowed to Chamberlain or Steward, Leeper’s pets, <a href="http://richardcockett.co.uk/book/twilight-of-truth-chamberlain-appeasement-and-the-manipulation-of-the-press/">as they were known</a>, would brief one of the private anti-appeasement newsletters then circulating, such as <a href="https://history.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/2007_Ari%20Cushner.pdf">Claud Cockburn’s The Week</a>. Among the leading “pets” were influential correspondents including Vernon Bartlett of the liberal News Chronicle, Victor Gordon-Lennox of the Conservative Daily Telegraph and Norman Ewer of the Labour-supporting Daily Herald. </p>
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<p>But by the time of Steward’s clandestine mission to the German embassy, Leeper and his principal backer at the Foreign Office, Sir Robert Vansittart (Cadogan’s predecessor) had been forced out of their jobs at the prime minister’s insistence.</p>
<h2>Policy failure</h2>
<p>We know little about what sort of man George Steward was. The MI5 field agent who watched him approach the German embassy on that afternoon noted that he wore a homburg and a dark grey suit with narrow-cut trousers. He also had a light grey tweed overcoat and walked with his feet turned out.</p>
<p>But we know more about the result of his visit to the German embassy. Steward’s efforts to consolidate Chamberlain’s ambitions came in the immediate aftermath of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2018/sep/21/munich-chamberlain-hitler-appeasement-1938">Munich Agreement of September 1938</a> by which Britain and France consented to the German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia. </p>
<p>Chamberlain’s reputation as a defender of peace was at its peak – and Steward hoped an extended agreement with Hitler could secure his reputation as the hero of the age. The awkward squad in the Foreign Office must get no credit at all. And we know how that turned out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union. </span></em></p>
Press secretary George Steward had clandestine meetings with Nazi officials as he worked for appeasement with Germany before the second world war.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146868
2020-09-24T14:10:48Z
2020-09-24T14:10:48Z
Harold Evans was a titan among the greats of British journalism
<p>Among the select band of truly great editors who have led British newspapers with sovereign authority, Harold Evans – <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54275941">who has passed away, aged 92</a> – stood out as a titan. The working-class boy who left his local state school at the age of 16 to learn his trade on the Ashton-under-Lyne Weekly Reporter first occupied an editor’s chair as an undergraduate at Durham University. </p>
<p>While studying politics, Evans edited <a href="https://www.palatinate.org.uk/">Palatinate</a>, the independent student newspaper, at a time before television challenged the authority of printed news. Subsequent experience on the Manchester Evening News and <a href="https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/opinion/letters/18140645.harold-evans---man-put-fuel-northern-echos-rocket/">Northern Echo</a> gave him a taste of the power and responsibility exercised by newspapers in an era when British national dailies achieved their peak circulations. </p>
<p>The achievements that earned him national attention came during his editorship of The Sunday Times between 1967 and 1980. His determination to investigate, expose and explain <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/sep/01/thalidomide-scandal-timeline">the Thalidomide scandal</a> set a courageous example of a newspaper speaking truth to power in the public interest and in the teeth of ferocious opposition. For this achievement, Evans deserves as much credit as a less well-known but equally brave predecessor.</p>
<p><a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/57595/">Arthur Mann</a>, who was editor of the Yorkshire Post between 1919 and 1940, had the courage to oppose appeasement consistently and boldly despite leading a newspaper owned and financed by Conservative interests. For this, Mann was heartily despised by then prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, who made no secret of his contempt. Despite huge pressure from his proprietors, Mann maintained intelligent <a href="http://communicationethics.net/sub-journals/abstract.php?id=00108">opposition to appeasement</a> throughout Chamberlain’s premiership.</p>
<h2>Things they don’t want you to read</h2>
<p>Evans faced at least as much pressure when he took on the legal and political power of The Distillers Company, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54275941">makers of thalidomide in the UK</a> and his newspaper’s most lucrative advertiser. Standing by the work of the Insight investigative team he had founded – and showing no sign of faltering despite colossal financial and reputational risks – Evans fought for his story all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. When, in 1979, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1979/04/27/archives/european-court-rules-britain-violated-press-freedom-editor-halls.html">the court ruled</a> that the Sunday Times could publish without restraint, the British government was obliged to change the law of contempt of court.</p>
<p>That victory was celebrated as a triumph of truth established through investigative reporting. It was also evidence of Evans’ strength as an inspiring leader. Dennis Griffiths, the leading historian of Fleet Street, <a href="https://www.bookdepository.com/Century-Journalism-1900-2000-Dennis-Griffiths/9780957223202">recognises</a> that among Evans’ great skills was his ability to bring together excellent reporters and coordinate their efforts to superb effect. </p>
<p>He led his team’s efforts to <a href="https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON04783_b.html">expose sanctions-busting</a> by supporters of the apartheid regime in Rhodesia. Evans also <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/top-scoops-british-journalism-all-time-philby-i-spied-russia-1933-sunday-times-1967/">indentified Kim Philby</a> as a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring, which passed information to the Soviet Union during the second world war and at the beginning of the cold war. </p>
<p>In a campaign to <a href="https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/opinion/leader/4650878.righting-wrongs/">prove the innocence of Timothy Evans</a> (1924-1950, no relation), wrongfully convicted and hanged for the murder of his wife and infant daughter, Harold Evans demanded an official inquiry while editor of the Northern Echo. At the Sunday Times, his persistent focus on this egregious miscarriage of justice helped to bring about abolition of the death penalty. </p>
<h2>Giant of the craft</h2>
<p>Evans deserves our respect because he never wavered from the view that a newspaper is much more than a commercial product designed to generate profits by selling a commodity called news. He treated the newspapers he led as flawed but valuable agents of democracy, using them to achieve the outcomes the leading media academic <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/582">Professor Michael Schudson</a>, in his widely respected 2008 study: Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press, calls “things news can do for democracy”.</p>
<p>Throughout his career, Evans proved through his deeds that painstaking, accurate reporting can expose wrongdoing and help to correct the balance of power between citizens and those who govern in their name.</p>
<p>There have been few like him. For this author, Mann came closest, followed by <a href="https://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/bio.php">WT Stead</a> who, as editor of the Pall Mall Gazette in July 1885, published “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” a pungent expose of child prostitution in London and the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13507486.2010.497306">first true example of investigative journalism</a>. Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail showed courage by <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/paul-dacre-says-there-was-deathly-silence-on-daily-mail-back-bench-as-they-laid-out-stephen-lawrence-murderers-splash-just-before-deadline/">identifying in 1997</a> the men he believed to be guilty of the murder of Stephen Lawrence.</p>
<p>However, one other British editor, <a href="https://www.arusbridger.com/">Alan Rusbridger</a>, who was editor-in-chief of The Guardian between 1995 and 2015, deserves mention. Rusbridger displayed real courage and skill when in August 2013 he published information <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-24466802">leaked to the Guardian by Edward Snowden</a>, the American whistleblower who copied highly classified information from the National Security Agency. </p>
<p>It is telling that Rusbridger <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/24/harold-evans-journalism-news-editor-death-facts">paid tribute to Evans</a>, writing that he “invariably turned to Harry for advice”, because Evans had “been there, done it” and “got the campaign medals”.</p>
<p>True greats recognise their peers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-conversation-with-journalist-author-and-thalidomide-campaigner-harold-evans-48322">In Conversation with journalist, author and thalidomide campaigner, Harold Evans</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union. His current work in progress, is a book for Bloomsbury Academic under the provisional title Reporting the Second World War: Newspapers and the Public in Wartime Britain.</span></em></p>
Evans is admired for his fearless leadership and tireless campaigning journalism.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/144081
2020-08-06T15:13:30Z
2020-08-06T15:13:30Z
‘Atomic plague’: how the UK press reported Hiroshima
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351547/original/file-20200806-24-1ef2kc2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C4%2C2995%2C2173&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Devastation: how Hiroshima looked the day after the atom bomb was dropped.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Everett Collection via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 7 1945, few Britons expected the war to end soon. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/ve-day-as-reported-by-british-newspapers-relief-joy-and-a-saucy-comic-strip-137906">relief of VE Day</a> three months earlier had already faded. Thousands of British soldiers, sailors and airmen were still involved in gruelling battles against Japanese imperial forces. Many who had fought across Europe expected to be sent to join them. </p>
<p>On Okinawa, American forces had lost 10,000 in their campaign to expel the Japanese garrison. A Sunday Times correspondent wrote that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The protracted and extremely bitter fighting and the substantial casualties incurred by the attackers convey the obvious warning that the invasion of the Japanese homeland, if and when it comes, may be a very tough and expensive affair.</p>
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<p>So, the reports about the attack on Hiroshima the previous day came as a complete surprise. My research into newspaper archives, only available electronically by subscription, reveals that journalists were stunned by the scientific breakthrough. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/manhattan-project">Manhattan Project</a>, whose team of American, British and Canadian scientists had designed and assembled atomic bombs at the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico, was an intensely guarded secret. Beyond a tiny elite, the weapon that would “radically alter the military and diplomatic power of the USA” and define the strategic politics of the post-war world, was unheard of and unimagined.</p>
<p>The Manchester Guardian’s initial report of the Hiroshima bomb explained that it was the result, as its headline related, of “Immense Co-Operative Effort by Ourselves and US”. A combination of awe at the scientific achievement and patriotic pride united newspapers of left and right. </p>
<p>From New York, the Daily Mail’s James Brough predicted that Japan faced obliteration by “the mightiest destructive force the world has ever known – unless she surrenders unconditionally in a few days”. A second report told how the workers who built the bomb had never seen their final product “and until today, they did not know what they were doing”.</p>
<p>Just days later, The Times correspondent in Washington DC explained that Japanese resistance had shaped the decision to attack Hiroshima:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Until early June, the president and military leaders were in agreement that this weapon should not be used … but those responsible came to the conclusion that they were justified in using any and all means to bring the war in the Pacific to a close within the shortest possible time.</p>
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<h2>Beyond belief</h2>
<p>But, amid astonishment at the new weapon, concern was not entirely buried. Winston Churchill wrote in the Daily Mail that: “This revelation of the secrets of nature, long mercifully withheld from man, should arouse the most solemn reflections in the mind and conscience of every human capable of comprehension.” </p>
<p>The Daily Mirror sought to make sense of the weapon’s power by relating it to its readers’ own lives. In a fine example of quality popular journalism, commissioned just 24 hours after the first bomb fell, the Mirror asked its reporters to explain what would have happened if an atomic bomb had hit their city.</p>
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<img alt="Enola Gay, US bomber, dropped first atom bomb to end the second world war." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351549/original/file-20200806-16-rb9ssl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351549/original/file-20200806-16-rb9ssl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351549/original/file-20200806-16-rb9ssl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351549/original/file-20200806-16-rb9ssl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351549/original/file-20200806-16-rb9ssl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351549/original/file-20200806-16-rb9ssl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351549/original/file-20200806-16-rb9ssl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Photo by James E. Weichers of the Enola Gay, the US Air Force B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Thornberg via Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>From Edinburgh, the Mirror reported that: “All historic Edinburgh would have disappeared.” In London: “There would be a swathe of utter destruction from Kensington Church to the Mansion House, as wide as the parks and the West End, from Bayswater Road and Oxford Street, across to Piccadilly and the Strand.” Manchester believed everything between Victoria Station and Old Trafford would be levelled.</p>
<p>The Manchester Guardian’s London correspondent lamented: “The fact, so suddenly and appallingly revealed to us, is that we have devised a machine that will either end war or end us all.” The Listener, a weekly title owned by the BBC, prayed that work to maintain peace would be pursued with as much vigour as the science that had split the atom. Newspapers hoped the new technology would be used to generate cheap energy.</p>
<h2>Hair-trigger business</h2>
<p>Eyewitness accounts of the condition of survivors poisoned by radiation were slow to emerge. Wilfred Burchett’s account for the Daily Express, headlined “<a href="https://assets.cambridge.org/97805217/18264/excerpt/9780521718264_excerpt.pdf">Atomic Plague</a>”, was published on September 5. The authorised eyewitness account of the second, Nagasaki bombing, by William L Laurence for the New York Times was released on September 9. These would change the tenor of debate.</p>
<p>The Guardian’s London correspondent described people wondering how the capital “would have stood it had the Germans been first with the atomic bombs. What a hair-trigger business the world has become”.</p>
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<p>In early September, the Daily Mail reported that Japanese doctors in Hiroshima were seeing patients die “at the rate of about one hundred daily through delayed action effects of the atomic bomb”. The Times reported warnings that: “No state would be more at the mercy of any future atomic bomb attacks than Britain” which had “immense aggregations of people in its great cities”.</p>
<p>Concern about the consequences of atomic warfare emerged more rapidly in newspapers than any about conventional bombing of German or Japanese cities. This had killed more civilians. Within weeks of the bombings, British newspapers had raised questions about how future use of atomic power might be effectively controlled and whether it could be used for peaceful purposes.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ve-day-as-reported-by-british-newspapers-relief-joy-and-a-saucy-comic-strip-137906">VE Day as reported by British newspapers: relief, joy and a saucy comic strip</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Japan raised the question of moral culpability. “This is not war, not even murder, it is pure nihilism”, declared its state broadcaster. Such responses begin to explain why, eight decades later, few Germans challenge their nation’s war guilt, but many Japanese consider their country a victim as much as a perpetrator of war.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. This article is based on research conducted in preparation of my book under the provisional title 'Reporting the Second World War: Newspapers and the Public in Wartime Britain'. I am under contract to Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc</span></em></p>
British newspapers were very quick to see the horrific potential of this new weapon.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/139523
2020-05-29T08:23:06Z
2020-05-29T08:23:06Z
Dunkirk: how British newspapers helped to turn defeat into a miracle
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338244/original/file-20200528-51477-bnoque.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=88%2C41%2C708%2C491&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Exhausted British troops on the quayside at Dover, May 31 1940.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Official War Office photographer, Imperial War Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Modern Britons associate <a href="https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-true-story-of-the-great-escape">The Great Escape</a> with the <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/great-escape-turns-50">1963 film of that name</a> starring Steve McQueen, reffering to, of course, a mass escape by Allied prisoners during the second world war. But this title might more appropriately be applied to the <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-dunkirk-evacuations">rescue of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from Dunkirk</a> between May 27 and June 4 1940.</p>
<p>As the UK marks the 80th anniversary of that escape, we shall hear much of the author <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/postscripts--jb-priestley/zn9xkmn">JB Priestley’s first “postscript” for BBC Radio</a> on Wednesday June 5. That broadcast coined the phrase “Little Ships” and even acknowledged Priestley’s own part in shaping understanding of Dunkirk. He asked listeners: “Doesn’t it seem to you to have an inevitable air about it – as if we had turned a page in the history of Britain and seen a chapter headed ‘Dunkirk’?” </p>
<p>But there was nothing inevitable about it.</p>
<p>Before pledging to “fight them on the beaches”, Winston Churchill himself reminded the House of Commons in the same speech that “<a href="https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/fight-them-on-the-beaches/">wars are not won by evacuations</a>”. He acknowledged that the BEF had courted disaster before depicting its escape as “a miracle of deliverance”. That the British public regards it as a triumph owes much to the work of British newspaper journalists and the Royal Navy press officers who briefed them.</p>
<h2>How the ‘miracle’ came about</h2>
<p>Dunkirk was not reported in eyewitness accounts from the beaches. The few war correspondents who struggled back with the retreating armies had no means by which to communicate. Reports, such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/from-the-archive-blog/2017/jul/25/dunkirk-evacuation-guardian-reporting-1940">Evelyn Montague’s The Miracle of the BEF’s Return</a> for the Manchester Guardian of Saturday June 1 1940, were penned by journalists invited to witness the Royal Navy’s delivery of evacuated soldiers to the ports of south-east England. There, they were briefed with patriotic fervour and naval pride as well as facts.</p>
<p>The first sentence of Montague’s piece gives a flavour of the mood that was inspired:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the grey chill dawn today in a south-eastern port, war correspondents watched with incredulous joy the happening of a miracle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The reporter – a grandson of the famous Guardian editor and owner C.P. Scott – did not fail to give the Royal Navy credit. Having described a waterfront hotel in which “every armchair held its sleeping soldier or sailor, huddled beneath overcoat or ground sheet”, Montague turned to the scene in the port: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As the rising sun was turning the grey clouds to burnished copper the first destroyer of the day slid swiftly into the harbour, its silhouette bristling with the heads of the men who stood packed shoulder to shoulder on its decks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Back in 1940, the Times did not award reporters bylines. Its report of the BEF’s return on June 1 was by “Our Special Correspondent”. He too witnessed the scenes in a south-eastern port (security censorship forbade more precise identification). The men, he wrote, were “weary but undaunted”. Protected by “the ceaseless patrol maintained by British warships and aeroplanes in the English Channel”, men who had displayed “steadiness under a cruel test” were “pouring onto the quays”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338239/original/file-20200528-51477-1f30gs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338239/original/file-20200528-51477-1f30gs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338239/original/file-20200528-51477-1f30gs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338239/original/file-20200528-51477-1f30gs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338239/original/file-20200528-51477-1f30gs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338239/original/file-20200528-51477-1f30gs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338239/original/file-20200528-51477-1f30gs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Undaunted’: Allied servicemen arrive in London after evacuation from Dunkirk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">War Office official photographer, Imperial War Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Daily Mirror’s Bernard Gray, writing in its stablemate, the Sunday Pictorial, gave his verdict in a column on June 2 headlined simply “The Whole Magnificent Story”. “There have been many glorious episodes in the history of Britain”, he opined, “but, if that great <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/macaulay/societyov.html">English historian Macaulay</a> were able to select from 2,000 years the most glorious week in the annals of the British Empire, this last seven days would surely be the week he would have chosen.” </p>
<p>Gray did not hesitate to offer comparisons: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Never mind the defeat of the Armada. Forget even the Battle of Waterloo, the epic of Trafalgar. For this week has seen the British Empire at its mightiest – in defeat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Standing “in the streets of an English Channel Port”, G. Ward Price of the Daily Mail was similarly enthralled in his front-page piece, Rearguard Battles On, on June 1: “It is a picture of staggering heroism, fighting spirit and determination that never weakened in the face of overwhelming odds in men and material.” </p>
<h2>A defeat, however ‘glorious’</h2>
<p>It took Hilaire Belloc, the Anglo-French author of Cautionary Tales for Children, to recognise in his column for the Sunday Times (The Evacuation and After, June 2) that the withdrawal from Belgium and the collapse of Britain’s key ally, France, constituted a “catastrophe”.</p>
<p>In his defining examination of the elements that comprise Britain’s “received story” of 1940, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/46507c80-3ed1-11dd-8fd9-0000779fd2ac">The Myth of the Blitz</a>, Scottish historian and poet Angus Calder noted that elements of the way the story was reported were misleading. However, Calder agreed that “Dunkirk was indeed a great escape”.</p>
<p>I celebrate the work British newspapers did to stiffen resolve and sustain morale at this time of grave national peril. In a democracy fighting totalitarianism, newspapers must balance their obligation to hold power to account and their duty to the national cause. The newspapers surveyed here certainly colluded in the creation of myths about Dunkirk, but their readers might not have welcomed any efforts to report Dunkirk any other way.</p>
<p>After all, myths are not lies and this one was studded with harsh facts. In Bernard Gray’s words for the Sunday Pictorial, Dunkirk was glorious despite the truth that: “The British Army has not won a battle. The British Army has retreated. The British Army has had to leave the Battlefield.”</p>
<p>For me, David Low captured the prevailing mood in his famous “<a href="http://hackcartoonsdiary.com/2017/05/02/cartoon-very-well-alone/">Very Well, Alone</a>” cartoon for the Evening Standard just a few weeks later on June 18. It depicts a British soldier alone before a raging sea and gesturing with a raised fist towards the Nazi-occupied continent from which German troops were expected to arrive at any moment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139523/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a member of the Society of Editors and the Free Speech Union. </span></em></p>
It may not have been Britain’s finest hour, but was it Fleet Street’s?
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/139568
2020-05-28T13:58:38Z
2020-05-28T13:58:38Z
People have been switching off from coronavirus news – but the Dominic Cummings story cut through
<p>The turmoil about whether Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, broke the UK’s lockdown rules has fuelled public anger about the government. This is despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-a-growing-number-of-people-are-avoiding-news-139246">many people experiencing “news fatigue”</a> that led them to either start avoiding news altogether or pay less attention to news coverage, our new research has found.</p>
<p>Our ongoing study of the public’s opinions about media coverage of COVID-19 found many people wanted journalists to hold Cummings to account with some suggesting his actions may have influenced other people to break the UK’s lockdown rules. The research is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-trust-tv-journalists-and-want-them-to-scrutinise-government-coronavirus-policy-new-research-137620">qualitative study conducted since mid-April</a> with 200 participants made up from a representative mix of people from the UK.</p>
<p>According to polls taken at the start of the UK’s lockdown in March, most people <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0031/193747/covid-19-news-consumption-week-one-findings.pdf">closely</a> followed the news for the latest information and analysis about COVID-19, while a <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/03/27/covid-19-support-government-reaction-swells">clear majority</a> were broadly supportive of the UK government’s handling of the pandemic.</p>
<p>But by the end of May our study showed close to half of participants did not follow news closely or at all. This was not an expression of apathy about the crisis. Our research revealed many of our participants have become more critical of the government’s decisions and wanted media coverage to reflect their more critical stance. The Cummings affair appears to have exacerbated anger towards the government – something that even some Conservative loyalists are acknowledging.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1265329583215316992"}"></div></p>
<h2>Holding Cummings accountable</h2>
<p>We asked our study participants between May 25 and 27 to select three stories over the past few days they would include in a TV news bulletin. Our respondents overwhelmingly named Cummings in their responses, expressing anger and dismay that his actions have gone unpunished.</p>
<p>Participants chose the Cummings’ story for a number of reasons, but principally because they wanted to make sure that he does not escape scrutiny. As one respondent put it: “It is necessary to keep the government and politicians accountable”, while another said the story was “a good example of how the government aren’t even holding themselves to account”.</p>
<p>Some participants suggested the story had influenced people’s behaviour in their local community. One revealed: “The beach was incredibly busy with absolutely no social distancing and I think that the revelations about Dominic Cummings and one rule for them and another for everyone else mixed with the hot weather is causing it.”</p>
<p>Even those who thought coverage about the prime minister’s adviser had been excessive thought it was justified given his behaviour.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think news media hounding of Dominic Cummings is distasteful but they are correct in putting pressure on him to resign as a lot of people are appalled at the hypocrisy and think why should they bother observing lockdown if it is one rule for him and another for everyone else.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>More critical of UK government</h2>
<p>In mid-April we <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/04/28/research-suggests-uk-public-can-spot-fake-news-about-covid-19-but-dont-realise-the-uks-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-in-many-other-countries/">found</a> that a large majority of people were voracious news consumers. But when we asked how much news they consumed just under a month later, for many people it was no longer a daily activity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-a-growing-number-of-people-are-avoiding-news-139246">Coronavirus: a growing number of people are avoiding news</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>By the end of May just over one in ten of our participants said they followed the news very closely. But while many people said they were consuming less news, a majority of participants signalled that they had become more critical of the government, and almost half thought the media’s coverage should be more critical of the government’s handling of the pandemic. </p>
<p>This is in sync with <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/public-opinion-hardens-against-dominic-cummings-fjz8jrxph">polls showing falling government support</a> and public disapproval with the prime minister.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1265396449635942400"}"></div></p>
<p>Above all, respondents who wanted more critical coverage called for greater scrutiny of government decisions, including challenging the prime minister about new lockdown measures in England. Many respondents acknowledged that their opinions had changed. One commented: “At the start of the pandemic, it was right that the media took a pragmatic approach to reporting. Now, after the multiple failing by the UK government, it should be much more critical.” </p>
<p>Another observed: “The news media should be asking tougher questions about the government’s plans going forward as everything is very vague at the moment.”</p>
<h2>Cummings a distraction?</h2>
<p>Over the course of our study since mid-April, participants have made many references to some of the salient issues facing the UK’s management of the crisis, such as testing and tracing COVID-19 cases, protecting critical workers, and policing social distancing measures.</p>
<p>But if people become less attentive to the news it could more dramatically affect their understanding of relevant health guidance and how far the UK government is held accountable for its handling of the pandemic. Our research has previously shown that much of the public is already <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/05/22/different-lockdown-rules-in-the-four-nations-are-confusing-the-public/">confused</a> about the different lockdown measures across the UK. There is also a lack of understanding about the severity of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-public-confused-and-suspicious-over-governments-death-toll-information-138966">death toll in the UK</a> compared to other countries.</p>
<p>While the Cummings affair has attracted a lot of public interest, given the level of interest from our participants in the study it could also prove a distraction from many other important issues. The challenge for journalists will be to keep the public interested in news while holding the government to account on a wide range of decisions that will impact on people’s lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139568/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, AHRC, BA and ESRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Kyriakidou receives funding from the AHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Morani receives funding from AHRC</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikki Soo receives funding from AHRC. </span></em></p>
COVID-19 ‘news fatigue’ had set in with the UK public, but then the prime minister’s chief advisor changed all that.
Stephen Cushion, Chair professor, Cardiff University
Maria Kyriakidou, Lecturer, School of Journalism, Cardiff University
Marina Morani, Postdoctoral research associate, Cardiff University
Nikki Soo, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/139246
2020-05-26T15:39:45Z
2020-05-26T15:39:45Z
Coronavirus: a growing number of people are avoiding news
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337694/original/file-20200526-106823-1gljtzi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=180%2C720%2C4947%2C2793&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Davies/PA Wire/PA Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the coronavirus pandemic really started to take hold in the UK in March, <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/infodemic-how-people-six-countries-access-and-rate-news-and-information-about-coronavirus">news consumption increased</a>, as in many other countries. But, since then, <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/initial-surge-news-use-around-coronavirus-uk-has-been-followed-significant-increase-news-avoidance">our research</a> shows that an increasing share of the UK population is switching off from the news. </p>
<p>The proportion of people who say they often or always avoid news increased from 15% in mid-April 2020 to 22% in mid-May. If we include those who say they sometimes actively avoid news, then the share reaches 59%. The vast majority of these who often or always avoid news, told us that they actively avoid news about coronavirus (87%).</p>
<p>When asked about the main reasons behind news avoidance, the majority of those who always or often avoid news (66%) told us that they do so because of the negative effect it has on their mood. One respondent told us: “The news currently makes me feel incredibly stressed”, while another said: “I am bombarded with negative news”. Other prominent reasons people gave for avoiding news were a sense of overload (33%), or a lack of trust in news (32%). Only 5% said they avoid news because they are not interested in it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337580/original/file-20200526-106866-1jvmx9b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Question: Do you find yourself actively avoiding news (base: total sample wave 1 = 2823, sample wave 2 = 2291, sample wave 3 =1973.)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters Institute/University of Oxford</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What the survey tells us</h2>
<p>The findings are based on a panel survey designed by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. The survey of 1,973 respondents was conducted by YouGov and is representative of the UK population. The purpose of the wider project is to collect survey data over ten waves on how people navigate news and information during the coronavirus pandemic. More details about the project and its methodology can be found on <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/UK-COVID-19-news-and-information-project">the project’s website</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337583/original/file-20200526-106832-76tadw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Do you find yourself actively trying to avoid news these days (Q1, 2017: base: male = 960, female 1013).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters Institute/University of Oxford</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While we did not find differences in news avoidance between groups with different levels of education, income or political orientation, we find that women are more likely to actively avoid news than men (26% to 18%).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1528882">As a previous study</a> has suggested, part of the reason for women being more likely to avoid news is due to the unequal distribution of caretaking responsibilities. During the pandemic where caretaking and homeschooling responsibilities have increased, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37941191">the existing inequalities</a> in household responsibilities have likely increased as well, adding another burden in existing gender inequalities in news consumption.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>An effective communication strategy is not only reliant on the quality of the messages but also on the wide reach of the message. Active news avoidance could limit the effectiveness of COVID-19 communication strategies. As the lockdown gradually eases, the knowledge of – and adherence to – detailed guidelines on how to visit indoor public spaces or to how safely meet with high-risk individuals will be essential when it comes to keeping the number of new infections low. The new guidelines are more detailed than the lockdown guidelines and as a result they demand higher attention from the public.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/337584/original/file-20200526-106828-c3dxr7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reasons given by people who said they often/always avoid news (base=364).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters Institute/University of Oxford</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Apart from the effectiveness of COVID-19 communication strategies, news avoidance is important from a democratic perspective. During this deep health, economic and social crisis, it is crucial for the public to follow news and developments to be able to attribute credit or blame to policymakers. </p>
<p>News avoidance is further important for the future of independent news organisations. The COVID-19 pandemic means that the news media industry, which was already experiencing a large disruptive crisis, <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/risj-review/what-will-coronavirus-pandemic-mean-business-news">faces even deeper problems</a>. While we are in the middle of a recession, the advertising market is shrinking, while <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/21/uk-national-newspaper-print-sales-plunge-amid-coronavirus-lockdown">print circulation is decreasing.</a></p>
<h2>Is this new for the UK?</h2>
<p>The increase in news avoidance follows a Brexit-related increase in avoidance the UK that we reported last year. <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2017/news-avoidance-2017/">In a survey</a> fielded in early 2017, around half of the sample (48%) said they never avoid news, placing the UK as one of the countries with the lowest levels of news avoidance across 36 countries. </p>
<p>When we repeated this question <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/inline-files/DNR_2019_FINAL.pdf">in early 2019</a>, the share of those who never actively avoided news was 36%, placing the UK above average in our survey sample of 38 countries. UK respondents cited the Brexit negotiation as their main reason behind their avoidance. As one respondent said then: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although I do watch the political news avidly, I made a new resolution to stop as it has a negative effect on my mood as I feel powerless to change anything.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now in our latest survey, only 20% of the population in the UK say they never avoid news. This highlights a steady increase in news avoidance over the years partly due to core developments such as the Brexit negotiations and COVID-19 that negatively affected the mood of parts of the audience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139246/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Antonis Kalogeropoulos works for the UK COVID-19 news and information project, coordinated by Richard Fletcher and Rasmus Nielsen from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. The project has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation.</span></em></p>
More and more people in the UK have been going out of their way to avoid news over the past couple of years: first with Brexit, now with COVID-19.
Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Lecturer in Communication and Media, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136779
2020-05-06T11:28:13Z
2020-05-06T11:28:13Z
Coronavirus: study shows people want more scientific expert analysis – and less Boris Johnson
<p>Since the UK government <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-as-the-uk-faces-more-restrictions-the-public-needs-clearer-government-information-134471">introduced</a> late afternoon press conferences in March, these have tended to dominate the news cycle. But our research with <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-trust-tv-journalists-and-want-them-to-scrutinise-government-coronavirus-policy-new-research-137620">news audiences</a> suggests that many people want the wider human impact of the disease brought into sharper focus. </p>
<p>They also want a greater emphasis on what experts are saying, including those advising the government – beyond their appearances at the daily press briefings.</p>
<p>As part of a <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/04/28/research-suggests-uk-public-can-spot-fake-news-about-covid-19-but-dont-realise-the-uks-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-in-many-other-countries/">continuing study</a> of just under 200 members of the public from April 16 and May 3, we found most people were exposed to government messaging about the lockdown. But when we asked who they wanted to hear more from and what issues they wanted addressed, our participants called for more scientific experts, free from political interference. </p>
<p>They also said there had been too much of a focus on the prime minister’s health and not enough analysis of the impact the pandemic is having on ordinary people.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1255893227770707971"}"></div></p>
<h2>Lockdown messaging</h2>
<p>Between April 30 and May 3, we asked participants if they felt more or less likely to shop, travel or mix in public compared to the previous week. Despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-calls-from-journalists-for-an-end-to-the-lockdown-are-out-of-step-with-public-opinion-136279">significant media attention</a> in recent weeks about whether and when the government might lift the lockdown, respondents overwhelmingly said their view was unchanged. Many people indicated they were less – not more – likely to mix in public compared to the previous week.</p>
<p>When explaining what informed their judgement, participants primarily referenced media coverage that mostly included government messaging. One participant said: “I think just the general coverage in the media has made me want to stay inside more”, while another was more precise: “Specific sources which have influenced me are the BBC’s coverage of Boris Johnson saying we are not removing the lockdown”.</p>
<p>Some respondents mentioned alarming stories that explained their reluctance to mix more in public: “There have also been articles in the BBC and Sky, suggesting that once lockdown measures are lifted, COVID-19 cases will rise again. So surely the best thing to do is not rush to public spaces.”</p>
<p>Clearly, the government’s messaging has cut through, but the challenge will be to communicate when and how it will be safe for people to mix again in public.</p>
<h2>What do the public want addressed?</h2>
<p>Since the prime minister was diagnosed with COVID-19, there has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/opinion/coronavirus-boris-johnson.html">criticism</a> about the amount of attention the media has focused on his health status. Between April 20 and 23, a week after Johnson left hospital, we asked participants whether there had been too much coverage of his recovery – or not enough.</p>
<p>While respondents recognised the importance of reporting the status of the prime minister’s health, they also raised concerns about the disproportionate focus on Johnson compared to the thousands of other people who were suffering with the disease. </p>
<p>One respondent commented: “I think that there has been too much coverage of the prime minister’s health. Every day it is the main story on the news … The pandemic affects everybody and news should be reported as such.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1249374626494513158"}"></div></p>
<p>With specific reference to television news, participants were then asked whether coverage answered their questions and reflected their concerns. There were a wide range of responses, but many people wanted less speculation, particularly about the possible easing of the lockdown, and more facts about the human impact of the pandemic. As one respondent put it: “I would like to see an overall picture of the pandemic. For example, it helps me to know how many people are surviving this virus due to hospital care and isolating at home … I would like the news to cover some form of statistics which also cover recovery rates.”</p>
<h2>Towards a public agenda?</h2>
<p>We also asked respondents about who they want to hear from more. The majority called for more expert views from health and science. One participant stated: “I would definitely like to hear more from scientists, professionals in the field, doctors and WHO [the World Health Organization]. Because I trust them the most and believe they have the real insight and knowledge into what is going on and how to tackle it.” </p>
<p>Many participants also wanted to hear more from the experts informing government decision-making beyond the daily press briefings. As one respondent explained: “More information from chief scientific advisers, greater insight into SAGE and what their reporting is.” There were also calls for critical workers at the front line of the pandemic, including, NHS staff, supermarket workers and bus drivers, to inform media coverage to a greater extent.</p>
<p>Overall, while most participants acknowledged the need for politics to inform day-to-day coverage, they felt it should be counterbalanced to a greater extent by independent analysis of government decision-making from health experts and scientists, along with more reporting about the wider human impact of the disease. </p>
<p>With the arrival of the prime minister’s new baby still <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52513103?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_campaign=64&at_custom3=%40BBCNews&at_medium=custom7&at_custom4=CAC965B6-8C72-11EA-8BE9-A8894744363C&at_custom2=twitter">attracting media attention</a>, our research suggests most people do not want personality-driven coverage. What they want is reporting that is in tune with the needs and concerns of ordinary people experiencing the pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, The British Academy, ESRC and AHRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Kyriakidou receives funding from the AHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Morani receives funding from AHRC</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikki Soo receives funding from AHRC. </span></em></p>
What the UK public thinks of the way the pandemic and lockdown are being covered by the media.
Stephen Cushion, Chair professor, Cardiff University
Maria Kyriakidou, Cardiff University
Marina Morani, Research Associate, Cardiff University
Nikki Soo, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/137906
2020-05-05T12:49:14Z
2020-05-05T12:49:14Z
VE Day as reported by British newspapers: relief, joy and a saucy comic strip
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332667/original/file-20200505-83769-hw9r8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C48%2C4601%2C3400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Daily Herald's front page for VE Day: 80% of the UK public read a newspaper during the war.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philip Bird LRPS CPAGB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1945, Britons were the world’s most enthusiastic newspaper readers. The habit of buying daily national newspapers extended throughout every social class. About 80% of British families <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1461670X.2012.680810">read one of the mass circulation London dailies</a> and two-thirds of middle-class families also bought a serious title such as The Times, Manchester Guardian or The Scotsman.</p>
<p>The BBC is rightly given the lion’s share of credit for bolstering the British wartime effort on the Home Front. But newspapers also served massive audiences of engaged readers and, crucially, they could and did perform roles the BBC could not. Newspapers were better able to hold the wartime government to account on issues that mattered to ordinary Britons. Examples of this include coverage of the overseas evacuation of children, air raid shelter policy and food rationing. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332674/original/file-20200505-83721-bv3aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=958&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the Mirror reported VE Day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Mirror</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some also brought a sense of irreverent fun to alleviate the hardship of what the Daily Mirror, most successful of the wartime titles, described on VE Day as “five years eight months and four days of the bloodiest war in history”.</p>
<h2>Britain’s ‘secret weapon’</h2>
<p>But such candour about the endurance that brought victory was not the element in the Mirror’s editorial mix that did most to attract left-leaning servicemen and made it the most popular daily for Britain’s fighting men and their families. </p>
<p>That was sex appeal delivered with a dose of demotic humour in the form of the cartoon beauty Jane. The cartoon strip had been created in 1932 by the cartoonist Norman Pett as “<a href="https://thecartoonmuseum.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/janes-journal-the-diary-of-a-bright-young-thing-1932-1959/">Jane’s Journal, the Diary of a Bright Young Thing</a>”. Pett had originally used his wife Mary as the model for Jane but as the war advanced the role was taken over by former champion swimmer and model Chrystabel Leighton Porter. </p>
<p>She became a potent symbol of British cheerfulness and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1377473/Death-of-Jane-the-model-who-helped-win-war.html">Winston Churchill described her</a> as the country’s “secret weapon”. Jane was certainly the British serviceman’s favourite and, on VE Day, Pett took the unprecedented step of portraying her entirely naked.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332660/original/file-20200505-83730-1p9qn2l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Jane’ was originally based on artist Norman Pett’s wife, Mary, before model Chrystabel Leighton Porter took over.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Mirror via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the cartoon published on page seven, Jane first appears in full army uniform seated on a table in a bar. She holds a glass of champagne in her left hand. A male soldier friend stands in the doorway carrying a Union Jack. Raising her glass, Jane declares: “Victory at Last, Smiler! I shall soon be out of my uniform now!”. In the next frame Jane is mobbed by a group of British squaddies all demanding “a souvenir” of their favourite pin-up girl. In the final frame, Jane emerges from the crush naked except for a loosely held but strategically draped Union Jack. Smiler jokes: “You’ve said it Jane - You’ve been demobbed already”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332661/original/file-20200505-83721-1qm1amu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332661/original/file-20200505-83721-1qm1amu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332661/original/file-20200505-83721-1qm1amu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332661/original/file-20200505-83721-1qm1amu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332661/original/file-20200505-83721-1qm1amu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332661/original/file-20200505-83721-1qm1amu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332661/original/file-20200505-83721-1qm1amu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">VE Day or not, this hasn’t aged well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Mirror</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This clearly passed as humour for the audience of the day.</p>
<p>Though far short of the Mirror’s antics with Jane, even the decorous BBC played with sexual humour in its wartime programming. Mrs Mopp, Cleaning Lady, one of the stars of the popular comedy <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lnhq6">It’s That Man Again</a> (ITMA), was popularly known for her catchphrase “Can I do you now, sir!”</p>
<h2>‘Concourse of joy’</h2>
<p>If cartoon nakedness did not appeal to readers of the popular Conservative Daily Mail, its proprietor, the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/media-families-22-the-rothermeres-1250650.html">second Viscount Rothermere</a> and his low-profile editor Bob Prew certainly understood that pictures gave them an advantage with which radio news could not compete. The Mail’s banner headline declared “VE Day - It’s all over. All quiet till 9pm then the London crowds went mad in the West End”. The front page picture depicted huge crowds in Piccadilly Circus. Beneath it appeared the caption: “The face of Victory – Daily Mail pictures give you a vivid impression of the great concourse of joy.”</p>
<p>Throughout their reporting on May 8 1945, newspapers reflected public frustration that the official announcement of the end of hostilities in Europe had been postponed. The surrender of all German forces had been agreed at Reims on May 7. But the chief of the German high command, Field-Marshall Keitel, did not sign the formal instrument of unconditional surrender until shortly before midnight on May 8. </p>
<p>Working throughout the evening of the May 7 among the crowds in central London, Daily Mail reporter Guy Ramsey captured the popular reaction to this delay: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>London, dead from six until nine, suddenly broke into victory life last night. Suddenly, spontaneously, deliriously. The people of London, denied VE Day officially, held their own jubilation. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the VE Day edition of the elite, establishment Times, a parliamentary correspondent diligently recorded why May 8 is recognised to this day as the official end of the war in Europe. Churchill would make “the official announcement” at 3pm. There would be simultaneous announcements in Washington DC and Moscow. </p>
<p>The Times reported the previous evening’s festivities with restrained and decorous pride: </p>
<p>“Although by 9 o'clock last night the expectation of a victory declaration by the Prime Minister had been dispelled by official warnings of its postponement, civilians and service men and women thronged the road and pavements carrying flags and paper hats. Cheering demonstrators climbed the roofs of buses. Cars trying to press through the crowds emerged with dozens of men and women clinging to the bonnets.</p>
<p>After six years of blackouts, the Times was thrilled to note that "Large bonfires ringed London and most public buildings were floodlit”.</p>
<h2>On a serious note</h2>
<p>At the smaller, more graduate-oriented – though equally liberal – Manchester Guardian, an international flavour was apparent. “Nations Rejoice at Victory” was the headline on one prominent news story. This recorded that King Gustav of Sweden had broadcast “warmest congratulations to Denmark and Norway now that our Nordic neighbours have once again become free and independent nations”. </p>
<p>The Guardian paid particular attention to neutral Ireland, where only days earlier the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, had called on Dr Hempel, the German ambassador to <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/de-valera-s-expression-of-sympathy-to-diplomat-condemned-1.17065">express condolences for Hitler</a> who had committed suicide on April 30. The Guardian reflected on the deep divisions apparent in Irish society noting that, on VE Day, people in central Dublin “‘were surprised to see students of Trinity College hoisting the Union Jack and the Red Flag over the main entrance to the University”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Students assembled at the windows and sang 'God Save the King’ and ‘Rule Britannia’. This provoked an outburst of booing from the crowd. The Guardian noted that ‘police were drafted in and windows were broken’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Guardian also recorded a note of caution that was present throughout Britain’s wartime press on VE Day. “We dare not forget” it reminded readers “that war still rages over a quarter of the globe, that British, Americans and Chinese are being wounded or killed every hour of the day and that many of the men who have won this victory in Europe will have again to screw their courage to the sticking point and risk their lives in the Far East”. </p>
<p>Small wonder so many of them were pleased to be temporarily distracted by Jane’s cartoon antics in the Daily Mirror.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a member of the Society of Editors </span></em></p>
Britain’s newspaper’s reported some wild scenes as the nation celebrated, but none wilder than in the Daily Mirror’s cartoon strip.
Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham University. He is a newspaper historian and an academic member of the University's Centre for Modern Conflicts and Cultures., Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/137620
2020-04-30T13:37:19Z
2020-04-30T13:37:19Z
People trust TV journalists and want them to scrutinise government coronavirus policy — new research
<p>Over recent weeks, debates about how reporters should cover the pandemic have intensified, after <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-britons-still-support-lockdown-despite-being-sadder-and-more-anxious-poll-11977655">a YouGov poll</a> on April 24 showed nearly two-thirds of people did not trust television journalists. Many <a href="https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1253702832655675393">politicians</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/IainDale/status/1253457206512619520?s=20">commentators</a> were quick to seize on the survey, blaming aggressive journalistic questioning at the government’s daily press conferences. More generally, it has been claimed the public want health information not adversarial journalism at a time of national crisis.</p>
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<p>But <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FS012508%2F1">our new in-depth study</a> with almost 200 participants during the pandemic showed news journalists are trusted – particularly those working for broadcasters. Moreover, we found they wanted more – not less – critical coverage of the government’s response to the pandemic.</p>
<p>As part of an <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/04/28/research-suggests-uk-public-can-spot-fake-news-about-covid-19-but-dont-realise-the-uks-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-in-many-other-countries/">ongoing diary study</a> of news audiences between April 16 and 29, we questioned people in detail about the level of trust they have in journalists and how the government’s handling of the coronavirus should be reported. </p>
<p>We recruited a representative mix of the population – in terms of age, gender, class, education and political preferences – not to measure public opinion, but to explore people’s opinions and knowledge. Our aim was to not only ask people what they think about journalists and news reporting of the pandemic, but to understand why they think that way.</p>
<h2>Is television news trusted?</h2>
<p>Since representative polls have consistently <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/articles-reports/2020/04/29/no-trust-media-has-not-collapsed-because-coronavir">showed</a> public trust in television news is high, a possible explanation for YouGov’s <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/articles-reports/2020/04/29/no-trust-media-has-not-collapsed-because-coronavir">alarming survey</a> was the wording of the question, which asked people if they trust journalists rather than specific broadcasters or news organisations. </p>
<p>To explore how the public perceive different types of journalism, we first asked if they trusted journalists on the coronavirus, and then more specifically asked if they trusted journalists working in TV news, radio news, newspapers, online news or social media.</p>
<p>Whereas 49% people trust journalists either a great deal or a fair amount, we found 72% did when they worked in television news. Levels of trust were greater for journalists working on radio than journalists generally, but not for those working for newspapers or online media. </p>
<p>When respondents provided a judgement, the BBC achieved a trust rating of 85%, ITV and Channel 4 73%, Sky News 69%, and Channel 5 54%. Overall, more people trusted the TV news bulletins than did not.</p>
<p>We also asked why people trusted some journalists over others. Overall, television news was viewed as being more authoritative than other platforms, with more accurate than speculative reporting. This was well summed up by one respondent:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I trust journalists on TV news the most because they seem to sound quite factual whereas journalists in online news don’t usually seem to come from credible sources. Newspapers are very hit and miss, depending on newspaper they will try and sell you different story or change the original in a way that suits them the most</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>More or less criticism of government?</h2>
<p>In order to explore people’s opinions about the reporting of the pandemic, we wanted to go beyond just examining what they generally thought about how well journalists had performed.</p>
<p>After showing respondents the headlines of the BBC’s and ITV’s late evening TV bulletins on the day that the UK recorded its highest number of deaths so far in the pandemic – April 8 – we asked them to assess the way in which broadcasters had reported the government’s handling of the pandemic. Broadly speaking, people characterised the BBC as having a factual and neutral approach, whereas ITV’s reporting was often seen as being more dramatic which – for some – conveyed the severity of the UK’s death rate. Clearly, not all respondents agreed on how broadcasters should – or should not – cover the pandemic. </p>
<p>Some participants, for example, echoed those politicians asking for a “rally-round-the-flag” approach to reporting, saying that it’s not appropriate to criticise the government at a time of national crisis. But most people called for more – not less – scrutiny of political decision making. While the BBC and ITV were singled out for not being critical enough, many respondents wanted both broadcasters to hold the government to account more robustly.</p>
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<p>For instance, one respondent commented: “ITV didn’t actually mention the government’s handling of the pandemic. I think the BBC was – as always – neutral of the government’s handling, although it did mention it slightly more. I think ITV should have been more factually based in the headlines.” </p>
<p>Another focused more generally on coverage, saying that: “Updates on what the government are doing I believe are not critical enough, they are stating facts such as the government aims to test 100,000 people per day, however they have not criticised the government themselves.”</p>
<p>Other respondents were blunter: “I don’t believe either of the broadcasters, here, were critical of the government at all. I genuinely feel we cover up, hold back and don’t get all the truths.”</p>
<p>Far from the public losing faith in journalists or asking them to rally round the flag, our research shows most people trust broadcast media, but want more critical scrutiny of the government. This suggests broadcasters should not be cowed by politicians or commentators, but emboldened by the public who want them to challenge the government about how well they are handling the pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137620/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Cushion has received funding from the BBC Trust, Ofcom, AHRC, BA and ESRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Kyriakidou receives funding from the AHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Morani receives funding from AHCR </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikki Soo receives funding from AHRC. </span></em></p>
Calls for journalists to rally round the UK government’s efforts to fight the pandemic are out of touch with public opinion, an in-depth study of news audiences has found.
Stephen Cushion, Chair professor, Cardiff University
Maria Kyriakidou, Cardiff University
Marina Morani, Research Associate, Cardiff University
Nikki Soo, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136279
2020-04-15T13:18:18Z
2020-04-15T13:18:18Z
Coronavirus: calls from journalists for an end to the lockdown are out of step with public opinion
<p>In times of crisis and widespread concern about decision-making, the public are extremely reliant on journalists to put their questions to those in power. If there was ever a time for the media to act as the fourth estate, holding power to account in the public interest, the coronavirus pandemic is it. Now, more than ever, their role is crucial in ensuring that the public mood is communicated and acted upon. </p>
<p>If prime ministers have traditionally started the working day <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/communicating-mps-power-media">by reading the press</a> to get a sense of the public mood, now government ministers face (virtually) daily scrutiny from journalists at briefings who are communicating it directly to them.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327702/original/file-20200414-117562-1ktponj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/327702/original/file-20200414-117562-1ktponj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327702/original/file-20200414-117562-1ktponj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327702/original/file-20200414-117562-1ktponj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327702/original/file-20200414-117562-1ktponj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327702/original/file-20200414-117562-1ktponj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/327702/original/file-20200414-117562-1ktponj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The pressure is on.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Express</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the context of daily death tolls and concerns around strategy, there is one issue that is omnipresent across the press, news broadcasts and the briefings. That pressing question is: <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/14/when-coronavirus-lockdown-uk-end-exit-strategy/">when will the lockdown end</a>? Newspaper headlines in the run-up to the Easter weekend, which marked three weeks of lockdown in the UK, showed this pattern intensifying: “Ministers delay lockdown” (Telegraph, April 9, following this headline the previous day: “Who will make the call on lockdown?”). On April 9, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror led with: “Lockdown: no end in sight”, while the Independent bemoaned a “lack of lockdown answers”.</p>
<p>At the daily briefings, there have been similar repeated calls for answers: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-XVkvloWQY">on April 6</a>, the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, set out the public’s demands, and on April 8 again referred to the “trade-off between protecting people’s health and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I68yO8d3YI">protecting people’s jobs”</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-I68yO8d3YI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In response to a fairly nuanced first question on the staggered and safe easing of restrictions, Fiona Bruce, presenter of the BBC’s Question Time, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000h497/question-time-2020-09042020">summarised</a>: “This is the question everyone wants answering: when might we begin to get out of this?”</p>
<h2>Public sphere</h2>
<p>Following the briefing on April 8, the presenters of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000h13f">BBC Radio 5 Live’s Drive programme</a> announced they had received “a stack of texts” objecting to the main line of questioning: “Asking for an exit date is like asking Winston Churchill for an exit date in 1939.” Another read: “I don’t want the government to feel they need to end the lockdown prematurely due to the media going on and on about it.” Somebody else texted: “If I have to stay at home for the next six months I’m honestly not bothered as long as people stop contracting it and dying.” </p>
<p>In other words, the public is overwhelmingly on the side of ensuring safety and listening to the scientists. Drive presenter Tony Livesley defended the journalists: “I think they think they are asking on behalf of the general public.” But, he admitted, there was not a single audience text demanding an exit date.</p>
<p>Before the advent of social media, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270902182_The_Commercial_and_the_Public_''Public_Spheres''_Two_Types_of_Political_Talk-Radio_and_Their_Constructed_Publics">it was often argued</a> that radio phone-ins were among the few places where the UK had anything resembling a genuine public sphere – a democratic space for dialogue and deliberation. As 5 Live is driven by listener participation, and has a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/2019-q4">weekly audience of five million</a>, this can be viewed as a not insignificant poll. On March 24 – the day after the lockdown was called, YouGov reported that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-uk-lockdown-boris-johnson-poll-yougov-latest-a9420526.html">93% of the public supported</a> the measures.</p>
<h2>Perception gap</h2>
<p>As a researcher who investigates public openness to policy measures on climate change, this all sounds familiar. We collected focus group data from across the UK to assess the public’s response to a proposed meat tax aimed at reducing UK consumption to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. A key finding of our <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/changing-climate-changing-diets">qualitative research</a> was that the majority of the public is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/24/meat-tax-far-less-unpalatable-than-government-thinks-research-finds">willing to accept restrictions</a> as long as the science is communicated clearly and rooted in questions of the public good.</p>
<p>Media reports often frame measures such as the meat tax as representative of a <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7674434/meat-tax-increase-price-of-bacon-pork/">“nanny state”</a> – which implies an overly authoritarian government approach to a particular issue. But our research found that policymakers – many of whom are influenced by this kind of reporting – tended to overestimate public resistance to restrictive policies. </p>
<p>The degree to which the government’s message on coronavirus has been communicated effectively and its policy informed by expert advice is open to debate. But, however <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-as-the-uk-faces-more-restrictions-the-public-needs-clearer-government-information-134471">chaotic Whitehall’s communications have been</a>, the simple message of “stay at home and save lives” is one which the vast majority of the public recognises and is responding to.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-as-the-uk-faces-more-restrictions-the-public-needs-clearer-government-information-134471">Coronavirus: as the UK faces more restrictions, the public needs clearer government information</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Neoliberal attitudes</h2>
<p>If we’re left wondering why the journalists are so out of step with the public mood, the answer lies in a media which has moved ideologically and materially to a <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/bbc-is-and-always-has-been-part-of-problem/">neoliberal model</a>, rooted in the values of free markets and financial growth. Similarly, the indication here is that journalists are prioritising the health of the economy over that of the public. </p>
<p>This is not to claim that the public don’t care about the economic (and other) impacts of the lockdown. But the most recent <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8215851/Britons-harsh-lockdown-rules-despite-fearing-damage-UK-economy-years-poll.html">polling shows</a> that even when most people believe there will be lasting damage to the economy, less than a third of respondents want an easing of the measures. Instead, the public seems to be looking not for the economy to open up prematurely but to be protected by the state (and not punished when it’s all over).</p>
<p>The relentless focus on the duration of the lockdown could place extra pressure on the government to act before it is completely safe to do so. Cabinet ministers – with their prime minister still partly out of action – are reviewing the measures on April 16. I’m staying home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Happer receives funding from UKERC, the EPSRC and the Avatar Alliance Foundation for her research.</span></em></p>
The government is under relentless pressure from the UK media to relax the strict lockdown rules. That could be a dangerous mistake.
Catherine Happer, Lecturer, Sociology, Glasgow University, University of Glasgow
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130229
2020-01-20T14:45:04Z
2020-01-20T14:45:04Z
Telegraph’s new tactic: will offering a Fitbit be enough to attract new readers?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310900/original/file-20200120-69606-ip9bok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C33%2C4466%2C2465&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lenscap Photography</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that UK printed newspapers are <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/national-newspaper-abcs-full-figures-december-2019-observer/">continuing to lose circulation</a> comes as no surprise, extending – as it does – a trend that has been gathering pace for two decades after digital media began to cannibalise print sales.</p>
<p>But the latest release of Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) circulation figures came with a postscript. The ABC <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/909-abc-statement-regarding-the-telegraph">announced</a> it had been informed that the Telegraph Media Group would no longer take part in the ABC’s audit that, for decades, has been the Holy Grail for the industry and advertisers.</p>
<p>The Telegraph justified its decision by explaining that the ABC metric was not how it measured its success. In its <a href="https://corporate.telegraph.co.uk/2020/01/16/company-announcement/">press release</a> the company said it was focused on a subscriber-first strategy underpinned by “long term investment in digital transformation”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ABC metric is not the key metric behind our subscription strategy and not how we measure our success.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is surprising isn’t The Telegraph’s decision to leave, but that it took this long for a national heavyweight to make this move, given the growing and increasing reliance on digital in today’s multi-channel news consumption marketplace. Of course, while The Telegraph’s stated aim is <a href="https://www.newsworks.org.uk/news-and-opinion/the-telegraph-launches-new-vision-to-reach-1-million-paying-subscribers-">10 million registrations and one million paying subscribers by 2023</a>, transforming the available digital eyeballs into long-term paying subscribers won’t be easy.</p>
<p>Inevitably, more publishers are trying to charge for content to sustain their newsrooms in the face of falling advertising revenue. But the <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/">Reuters Digital News Report 2019</a> highlighted the battle they face, revealing only 7% of those surveyed in the UK said they had committed to ongoing payments for online news in January/February 2019. Compare that to top-of-the-league Norway where it was a heady 27% of those sampled.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310876/original/file-20200120-69547-i5ss8t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK national newspaper circulation December 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, The Telegraph reported <a href="https://corporate.telegraph.co.uk/2020/01/16/company-announcement/">44% growth in digital subscriptions in 2019</a>, taking it to 213,868 and for the first time exceeding its 209,443 print subscriptions. Last month the Telegraph achieved record subscriptions and a record number via mobile. Those encouraging statistics may have prompted the decision to leave the ABC.</p>
<p>The group is aggressively marketing its digital subscriptions. Currently enlisting for an annual <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/customer/subscribe/">high-end Telegraph digital subscription</a> – which offers access to all articles on telegraph.co.uk and digital editions of the paper each day to read on a mobile device (£200) – comes with a sweetener of a high-end Fitbit which is worth close to £200. That’s attractive. The challenge will be persuading these subscribers to stick around after 12 months.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310892/original/file-20200120-69547-ij0u5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A new digital strategy for The Telegraph?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">urbanbuzz via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Guardian has shown how brokering these new relationships (as well as pursuing an aggressive cost-cutting strategy) can be effective, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2019/may/01/guardian-media-group-announces-outcome-of-three-year-turnaround-strategy">announcing last May</a> it had broken even at operating EBITDA level. The group’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2016/jan/25/the-guardian-outlines-three-year-business-plan-to-staff">three-year-strategy</a> reduced costs by 20% (partly as a result of redundancies) and boosted the newspaper’s digital presence, with an increase in its total monthly page views from 790 million in April 2016 to 1.35 billion page views in March 2019.</p>
<p>Importantly, the Guardian revealed that 55% of its revenues were now digital, highlighting “good growth in digital advertising, digital subscriptions and reader contributions”. And it confirmed more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2019/may/01/guardian-media-group-announces-outcome-of-three-year-turnaround-strategy">655,000 monthly paying “supporters”</a>, plus an additional 300,000 people who had made a one-off contribution in the previous year under its <a href="https://support.theguardian.com/uk/contribute">“Support the Guardian’s journalism” scheme</a>. </p>
<h2>Print v digital</h2>
<p>The downward trend in print circulation that all publishers are battling has gathered pace in the past decade. The <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/tv-radio-and-on-demand/news-media/news-consumption">Ofcom News Consumption Report</a> for 2019 released last summer reported <a href="https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-people-in-the-uk-are-accessing-news-6-key-findings">a fall of 52.5% for UK national newspaper print circulation</a>, down from 22 million in 2010 to 10.4 million in 2018.</p>
<p>And as anyone working in newspapers knows, online audiences have become increasingly important, as well as facing head-on the challenge from social media as a news source, with nearly half of all adults in the Reuters report saying they <a href="http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/">use it for news</a>.</p>
<p>Inevitably, as online audiences get bigger, the drive to grow digital advertising revenues gathers pace. Advertising clients already expect to be quoted digital success figures, from the number of page views a site receives each month to unique user numbers or the average engagement time.</p>
<p>And, as many in the industry agree, focusing on growing audience numbers is just as important as managing newspaper sales numbers to maintain the ABC figures. As one senior newspaper executive said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a bold move [by The Telegraph] to step away from the ABCs but their decision to focus on digital registered users and online subscribers is a strong nod towards their belief in the growing success of digital journalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course as The Sun and The Daily Mail vie for top slot it suits both to stay within the current ABCs. There’s bragging rights at stake. But, for The Telegraph, where was the value in staying? In December 2002 it sold around 933,525 papers each day. After 17 years, showing the seismic shift seen across the industry, its total average print circulation for December 2019 was 317,817, down 12% year on year.</p>
<p>The Times fared better in the latest audit, but only just, dropping by 11% to 370,005 with 53,284 bulk sales – meaning those given away in hotels, airports and the like. Over the same period, the Financial Times fell 10% to 162,429, with 29,783 bulk sales and the Guardian’s circuation fell by 5% to 133,412.</p>
<p>It was the same story for the Sunday “quality” rivals. Again the Telegraph stable experienced the highest percentage fall, the Sunday Telegraph’s 12% drop to 248,288 was 3% worse than The Sunday Times whose 9% took them to 648,812, with 50,808 bulks, while the Observer had the greatest cause for encouragement with an overall fall of only 2% and figures of 163,449.</p>
<h2>It was the Sun wot won it – just</h2>
<p>It remains to be seen if ABC methodology will change. The ABC statement was conciliatory, acknowledging the Telegraph’s wish to promote “growing subscription numbers across print and digital”, but adding the best route would be “an industry-agreed ABC standard”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310894/original/file-20200120-69535-19u1xmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sun newspaper’s circulation fell by 13% during 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michaelpuche via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>ABC <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/909-abc-statement-regarding-the-telegraph">said it was</a>: “open to working with the Telegraph, as with all publishers, on developing metrics which support their strategies”.</p>
<p>Interestingly, December’s traditional ABC figures were accompanied by a new metric – measuring <a href="https://www.abc.org.uk/newslink/113-abc-news/908-abc-figures-show-1-68-billion-national-newspapers-circulated-in-2019">total circulated copies</a>, which refers to “the complete number of copies distributed by media owners” and is calculated by multiplying each title’s number of issues by their monthly ABC figure, then aggregating across the year.</p>
<p>Under that metric, The Telegraph ranked fifth in national daily newspapers with 97.1 million for January to December 2019 – only beaten among daily broadsheets by The Times, which sold 115.5 million copies. Achieving a new industry-agreed ABC standard to capture subscription numbers across print and digital would be progress, albeit long overdue – the only surprise is it hasn’t happened sooner.</p>
<p>But until the ABC metrics change, the most fascinating aspect will be whether The Sun can retain the accolade of the UK’s top-selling newspaper. With the red top newspaper’s total average circulation of 1,215,852 declining 13% year-on-year – compared to a fall for the Daily Mail of just 7% to 1,141,178, there well be change at the top in 2020.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It’s a bold move, but publishers are increasingly desperate to attract digital readers to offset the fall in print sales.
Mary Williams, Principal Lecturer in Journalism, University of Portsmouth
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129099
2019-12-19T09:59:26Z
2019-12-19T09:59:26Z
Election coverage: thanks to Brexit, Labour had a media mountain to climb
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307769/original/file-20191218-11951-5etc3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=145%2C137%2C5239%2C3533&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">As usual, the UK media landscape offered partisan coverage of the 2019 election.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Facundo Arrizabalaga</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You don’t have to deny the growing political significance of social media to accept that the mainstream media continue to play a vital role in informing and priming public opinion during elections. Moreover, both worlds are <a href="https://www.andrewchadwick.com/hybrid-media-system">deeply connected</a>. Fewer people are buying newspapers but plenty are accessing the same content online.</p>
<p>Broadcast and newspaper content is recirculated constantly via <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/12/uk-news-push-alerts-negative-labour-positive-tories">social media platforms</a> and TV news remains the <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0027/157914/uk-news-consumption-2019-report.pdf">principal source of political information</a> for most UK adults. </p>
<p>Crucially, it is professional journalists who, through their privileged access, provide the news and insight about political elites that provide so much of the basis for social media commentary (and complaint).</p>
<p>Loughborough University has been conducting a news audit of the 2019 general election throughout the campaign and our <a href="https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/general-election/report-5/">final report</a> has just been published. Our analysis focused on election coverage in weekday TV evening news and the national paid-for press. It provides an empirical basis for testing some of the claims and counterclaims made about the media’s performance during this vital political period.</p>
<h2>A Brexit election?</h2>
<p>One of these is the assumption that Brexit would <a href="https://pressgazette.co.uk/ofcom-backs-sky-news-brexit-election-strapline-in-campaign-coverage-after-labour-complaint/">dominate the media campaign</a>. This had <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-has-had-more-news-coverage-in-the-uk-election-than-labours-core-agenda-new-data-128486">major party political implications</a>, as the Conservatives, and to a lesser extent the Liberal Democrats, sought to bring the issue to centre stage and Labour aimed to shift the agenda onto other matters – in particular, healthcare provision.</p>
<p>Our research shows that the 2019 media election was initially about Brexit, then it wasn’t about Brexit, and then it was again. Figure 1, below, compares the weekly trajectory of the issue in comparison to the other dominant issues in the media agenda. Brexit was the most dominant theme at the start and end of the campaign but in the intervening periods its prominence lessened, to the point that in week four it fell behind the two other substantive policy themes of the campaign: “health/healthcare” and “business/economy/trade”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307736/original/file-20191218-11900-151krsy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307736/original/file-20191218-11900-151krsy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307736/original/file-20191218-11900-151krsy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307736/original/file-20191218-11900-151krsy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=292&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307736/original/file-20191218-11900-151krsy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307736/original/file-20191218-11900-151krsy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307736/original/file-20191218-11900-151krsy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brexit dominated the election media agenda in all but week four.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Loughborough University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This dramatic decline in the penultimate week needs some interpretation. Brexit haunted the hustings throughout the election – but by that stage it had started to become part of the background context of the campaign rather than its focal point. This seems to have been noted by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, who voiced <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10469823/boris-johnson-warns-jeremy-corbyn-bow-enemies/">his concerns</a> at the time that “people have slightly lost their focus on the political crisis that we face … And I think maybe we need to bring that back”.</p>
<p>His mantra-like reiteration of the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/get-brexit-done-boris-johnsons-effective-but-misleading-slogan-in-the-uk-election/2019/12/12/ec926baa-1c62-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html">Get Brexit Done</a>” soundbite in the final days of the campaign undoubtedly fuelled the final rush of Brexit coverage. </p>
<p>But even when Brexit was reported, there was a lack of fiscal analysis as to what implementation might mean. This contrasted with the detailed appraisals frequently applied to other manifesto commitments. For example, the Institute for Fiscal Studies <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-election-2019-why-the-bbcs-approach-to-the-ifs-is-a-threat-to-its-impartiality-128032">gained considerable media exposure</a> on the basis of its analyses of parties’ spending pledges and projections. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-election-2019-why-the-bbcs-approach-to-the-ifs-is-a-threat-to-its-impartiality-128032">UK election 2019: why the BBC's approach to the IFS is a threat to its impartiality</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our research shows that 53% of these appearances linked to taxation related coverage and 46% to business and economy coverage. Only 8% connected to Brexit. (NB these percentages are separate and do not add up to 100).</p>
<h2>Partisan press</h2>
<p>We also monitored the scale of press partisanship in the campaign. That the national press in the UK is habitually pro-Conservative is news to nobody – but it is the scale of this partisanship rather than the fact of it that requires analysis. </p>
<p>In the immediate post-mortems after Labour’s substantial defeat, some <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2019-1980s-labour-blames-media-failure-1341795">commentators have argued</a> that the party should not seek to attribute its failure – even partly – to the hostility of the national press. Anti-Labour newspaper editorialising is just part of the electoral landscape that the party needs to work around or push through. </p>
<p>Our research is solely focused on content and offers no basis for drawing conclusions about cause and effect. That said, our analysis challenges the view that 2019 was “business as usual” in partisanship terms. Figure 2 shows the week-by-week totals and demonstrates how substantial the negative coverage of Labour was throughout the formal campaign and how it intensified. It is important to appreciate that this count was not entirely comprised of overt editorialising. It also included more factual news coverage that reported upon issues that had obviously negative implications for a party.
</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307739/original/file-20191218-11951-1ictzq6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307739/original/file-20191218-11951-1ictzq6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307739/original/file-20191218-11951-1ictzq6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307739/original/file-20191218-11951-1ictzq6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307739/original/file-20191218-11951-1ictzq6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307739/original/file-20191218-11951-1ictzq6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307739/original/file-20191218-11951-1ictzq6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Every newspaper election item was rated as to whether it had positive or negative implications for each party, although many items either had mixed or no implications for individual parties. We then subtracted the total number of negative from positive stories to gain a positive or negative score for each party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Loughborough University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Figure 3 compares the aggregate trends found in 2019 with those we identified, using identical measures, in the 2017 general election. The results show that newspapers’ editorial negativity towards Labour in 2019 more than doubled from 2017. In contrast, overall press negativity towards the Conservatives reduced by more than half. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307742/original/file-20191218-11929-1d8vgjv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307742/original/file-20191218-11929-1d8vgjv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307742/original/file-20191218-11929-1d8vgjv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307742/original/file-20191218-11929-1d8vgjv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307742/original/file-20191218-11929-1d8vgjv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307742/original/file-20191218-11929-1d8vgjv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307742/original/file-20191218-11929-1d8vgjv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To standardise the measures, we divided the number of positive minus negative items by the total number of newspaper items in each campaign. This produced a decimal number between -1 and +1, where -1 = complete negativity, +1= complete positivity and 0 = complete balance of negativity/positivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Loughborough University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We must rightly be cautious about overly media-centric explanations for political outcomes, but this is not the same as saying the media’s role was insignificant. In 2019, the Conservatives ultimately wrested control of the issue agenda in TV and press coverage and secured a far more emphatic newspaper endorsement than during the previous campaign. These factors cannot have helped Labour’s cause.</p>
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<p></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Deacon has received funding from The Economic and Social Research Council, the Leverhulme Foundation, the British Academy, the BBC and the Electoral Commission</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Wring has previously received funding from the Leverhulme Foundation, the British Academy, Guardian, the BBC and the Electoral Commission</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It wasn’t the ‘Sun wot won it’, but the partisanship of the UK press made the Conservatives’ task a great deal easier.
David Deacon, Professor of Communication and Media Analysis, Loughborough University
David Smith, Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of Leicester
Dominic Wring, Professor of Political Communication, Loughborough University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127133
2019-11-15T16:41:18Z
2019-11-15T16:41:18Z
UK election 2019: partisan press is pulling out all the stops against Labour
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302011/original/file-20191115-66957-gx47uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C4571%2C2584&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lenscap Photography via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea that there’s no such thing as bad publicity could well be tested in the UK’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/uk-election-2019-75714">2019 election campaign</a>. So could the proposition that the only worse thing than people talking about you is people not talking about you, if our research into press coverage of the election is any indication.</p>
<p>Our analysis of the first week of the campaign shows that the Labour Party and its leadership are getting more press exposure than their rivals so far. But this isn’t necessarily good for Jeremy Corbyn and his colleagues, when so many of those stories have involved headlines such as <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7660183/Jewish-Chronicle-delivers-devastating-attack-Jeremy-Corbyn.html">this one</a> in the Daily Mail on November 7: “‘The vast majority of British Jews consider Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite:’ Jewish Chronicle delivers devastating attack on Labour leader warning he must NEVER be PM”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301968/original/file-20191115-66925-1yucm69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Daily Mail headline, November 15.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Mail</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Or <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10301484/mire-anti-jewish-racism-labour/">this one</a> in The Sun the following day: “IAN AUSTIN ‘I’ve given 40 years of my life to Labour, but EVERYONE should vote for Boris’. Here’s why Corbyn is unfit for No10”.</p>
<p>Analysing press partisanship in the current UK general election might seem an exercise in investigating the stark, staring obvious. </p>
<p>If there is one predictable feature of British electioneering it is that most national newspapers titles will support the Conservative party.</p>
<p>But partisanship is a matter of degree as well as allegiance and close analysis of its basis and extent reveals important nuances. Take, for example, the apparent replacement of the “Tory press” with the “<a href="https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/">Tony press</a>” between 1997 and 2005, when in three consecutive campaigns most press opinion supported Tony Blair and the Labour party. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aZa0AQAAQBAJ&pg=PT165&lpg=PT165&dq=David+Deacon+Dominic+Wring+Partisanship&source=bl&ots=gwJMRT20Cf&sig=ACfU3U0GCKQ6ta7OKPImsCHeXtUUvGyHag&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFnM-HzMjkAhWTiVwKHXgDBhg4ChDoATAAegQIBxAB#v=onepage&q=David%20Deacon%20Dominic%20Wring%20Partisanship&f=false">Research shows</a> these endorsements were uncharacteristically equivocal, offering tepid personal support for the then prime minister rather than his party. This period represented dealignment rather than a realignment in press opinion. </p>
<p>In 2010, majority press opinion again <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230305045_18">rallied behind the Conservatives</a> but the cheerleaders of this change, particularly The Sun and Daily Mail, seemed uncertain who to target: a foundering Labour prime minister in Gordon Brown or a vibrant, telegenic Liberal Democrat leader in Nick Clegg? They had no such doubts in the 2015 and 2017 campaigns, with the Labour party leaders Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn respectively being subjected to sustained, personal attacks from most of the highest-selling titles.</p>
<h2>‘Brexmas election’</h2>
<p>What can we expect in the 2019 UK general election where Brexit is likely to dominate the campaign landscape? Boris Johnson’s premiership has steered the Conservatives firmly into the Leave camp, aligning with the strong and established Eurosceptic orientations of many national titles.</p>
<p>But there have been industry changes since the last election that may be significant. A new editor, Geordie Greig, <a href="https://theconversation.com/daily-mail-new-editor-and-new-enemies-of-the-people-107202">has been appointed</a> at the Daily Mail, now vying with the Sun to be the highest selling daily newspaper in print terms, and he is widely perceived to be more liberal-minded and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/11/paul-dacre-daily-mail-geordie-greig-letter-financial-times">less anti- Remain than his predecessor</a>, Paul Dacre.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/geordie-greig-what-to-expect-from-the-daily-mails-next-editor-98090">Geordie Greig: what to expect from the Daily Mail's next editor</a>
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<p>The Daily Express and Daily Star have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/09/trinity-mirror-buys-express-star-127m-deal-richard-desmond-ok">bought out by the Mirror group</a>, ending the influence of their previous proprietor, Richard Desmond, whose convinced Euroscepticism steered the Express <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0267323115612215?journalCode=ejca">to back UKIP in the 2015 election</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301971/original/file-20191115-66973-1c6rquz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Still a partisan paper: Daily Express front page for November 8.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Express</span></span>
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<p>Elsewhere, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50192912">Daily Telegraph</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45820672">the I paper</a> are both up for sale at a time when market conditions remain extremely challenging. National press circulation in the 2017 general election was nearly half of the levels in the 1992 campaign when the Sun newspaper sold more than 3.5 million copies and famously declared: “It’s the Sun wot won it!” The <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/national-newspaper-abcs-daily-mail-closes-on-suns-position-as-top-selling-title/">latest circulation figures</a> show the sector has lost a further 2 million readers since the 2017 campaign.</p>
<h2>Real-time audit</h2>
<p>The Centre for Research in Communication and Culture at Loughborough University will be <a href="http://electionheadlines.buzzsprout.com/720012/2085966-e1-2019-election-media-analysis-7-13-november-2019">monitoring press partisanship</a> throughout the campaign as part of its wider “real-time” audit of media coverage of the 2019 UK General Election. <a href="https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/general-election/report-1/">Our analysis</a> of reporting of the first week of the formal campaign suggests that Labour are once again facing a rough ride from many national titles, despite the recent changes noted above.</p>
<p>In terms of overall press exposure, leading Labour figures either matched or exceeded coverage given to senior government figures. For example, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson were the joint most prominent politicians (appearing in 17.4% of all newspaper items) and John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, gained more prominence than the actual chancellor, Sajid Javid (13.5% of all press items versus 9%). Overall, all Labour party sources accounted for 40% of all politicians featured, exceeding Conservative party appearances by 5%.</p>
<p>But this greater exposure cannot be deemed good news for the opposition. Tellingly, ex-Labour MPs received as much press prominence as all Liberal Democrats sources, with Ian Austin, the former Labour MP for Dudley North, receiving three times more coverage than Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson.</p>
<p>Moreover, a large proportion of newspaper items that featured Labour sources had a clearly negative slant. The extent of this is demonstrated in the chart above. For every item, we assessed whether the information or commentary contained within it had positive or negative implications for any political party. The results are calculated by subtracting the total number of negative stories from the total of positive stories for the five main parties. These scores are then weighted by press circulation (where 1 = 1 million).</p>
<p>The results show that Labour have already accumulated a substantial proportion of negative stories in the national press, with only the Conservative party showing a positive balance in the press ledger. </p>
<p>One frequent manifestation of newspaper ambivalence towards Blair was the criticism that his party was <a href="https://www.economist.com/britain/2000/07/20/blair-in-a-spin">obsessed with presentation</a> rather than substance. In 2019, “spin” appears to have disappeared from the electoral lexicon and it is the supposed evil of conviction politics rather than confection politics that is the basis of many press attacks on Labour.</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300097/original/file-20191104-88382-xr3pj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300097/original/file-20191104-88382-xr3pj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300097/original/file-20191104-88382-xr3pj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300097/original/file-20191104-88382-xr3pj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300097/original/file-20191104-88382-xr3pj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300097/original/file-20191104-88382-xr3pj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300097/original/file-20191104-88382-xr3pj3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Deacon has previously received funding from the ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme Foundation, BBC Trust and Electoral Commission</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Wring has previously received funding from the British Academy, Leverhulme Foundation, BBC Trust and Electoral Commission</span></em></p>
Analysis of the first week of the campaign shows that not all publicity is good publicity.
David Deacon, Professor of Communication and Media Analysis, Loughborough University
Dominic Wring, Professor of Political Communication, Loughborough University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.