Welcome back Tweedsters, Because journalists
overwhelmingly rely on the voices of elites,
elites have a disproportionate influence on
the media agenda, acting as the ‘primary
definers’ who set the framework of interpretation
against which all subsequent voices are forced
to insert themselves. It is corporations,
not leftist academics which enforce politically
correct limits on speech. By contrast, ordinary
people who appear in the news are constructed
primarily as passive consumers, reacting to
the agendas set by these elites.
Giving that I say that, one objection may
be of the left wing bias that people claim
of the media, especially for example at the
BBC. Let’s take a look at some examples
in the UK media:
“BBC may be biased against Jeremy Corbyn,
says former BBC Trust chairman” says one
article,
“Is the BBC biased against Jeremy Corbyn?
Look at the evidence” -- the article says
-- “extensive piece of research carried
out by academics at the LSE’s Department
of Media and Communications, published last
month. That research affirmed those earlier
findings and concluded that “most newspapers
[had been] systematically vilifying the leader
of the biggest opposition party, assassinating
his character, ridiculing his personality
and delegitimizing his ideas and politics.”
The latest report, produced by the Media Reform
Coalition jointly with the Department of Film,
Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, University
of London, focuses on the coverage of the
attempted “coup” against Corbyn which
followed the Brexit vote. It reported similar
findings on the press, but is particularly
notable for being the first systematic examination
of television coverage of Corbyn and his supporters.
Its most striking findings relate to the BBC.
The researchers’ quantitative analysis of
BBC News at Six shows that critics of Corbyn
were given twice as much airtime as his supporters,
and that the issues mobilised by his critics
were given much greater prominence. The researchers
also noted the pejorative language BBC reporters
used to describe Jeremy Corbyn, his team and
his supporters.
If the UK press had a left wing agenda, why
would they not support Corbyn? After all he
embodies many left wing ideologies like free
university tuition fees and college maintenance,
he also wants to bring utilities into public
ownership.
Ask yourself, who loses in all of these proposals
of Corbyn? Even the media moguls are not immune.
If the media really did have a left bias they
would surely promote left wing core ideology.
What about war, surely the left wing BBC can’t
be pro war? “Study deals a blow to claims
of anti-war bias in BBC news ”The article
says “Downing Street's complaints about
anti-war bias within the BBC appear to be
disproved by an academic analysis that shows
the corporation displayed the most "pro-war"
agenda of any broadcaster.
A detailed study of peak-time television news
bulletins during the course of the Iraq war
shows that the BBC was more reliant than any
of its rivals on government and military sources.”
You might be thinking, who are these people
and how do they control the media. I’m not
saying that they all get together and have
a board meeting or even that elite interests
are always aligned. I’m saying where there
is unified elite consensus, the media will
serve elite interests uncompromisingly. This
happens purely because of the economic model
in which the system is based. There is no
puppet master only the invisible hand of the
market driving the media for example, the
dependence on advertising and the pressure
of news deadlines.
The journalists themselves are not censored
and some do indeed try to change things, however
those that try may end up being fired or just
quit. That’s not to say that those journalists
always fail, the system is not foolproof.
However, a major filter to control the journalist's
viewpoints happens based on who is even hired.
‘It is entirely possible,’ ‘for politicians
to rely on advisors to advise, civil servants
to devise policy solutions and journalists
to report on their actions having all studied
the same courses at the same universities,
having read the same books, heard the same
lectures and even been taught by the same
tutors.’
Even an entire news organisation may try and
challenge state power but the economic capitalist
model will correct them.
“While Snowden put us on the map, it makes
corporate clients very nervous about wanting
to get big into the Guardian,” according
to a former executive.
In the long term, bias will be towards supporting
elite interests, even if small blips of anti-elite
press coverage may emerge for a brief while.
In addition, the state itself can correct
news organisations through the use of flak
as in the case of the Guardian.
A threat of legal action by the government
that could have stopped reporting on the files
leaked by Edward Snowden led to a symbolic
act at the Guardian's offices in London, in
which they destroyed the Snowden’s files.
Regarding the economic model in which the
media operate, take the following research.
The role of PR influence is huge in the UK
press. A study carried out by Cardiff University
found that 49% of the articles sampled in
the UK quality press, for example the Guardian,
The Times, Independent, Daily Telegraph and
the mid-market Daily Mail were from PR companies,
where 30% of those were copied verbatim and
19% were largely copied from the PR release.
Moreover, direct replication is rarely attributed.
Many stories apparently written by a newspaper’s
reporter originated in other sources and seem
to have been largely cut and pasted.
Only 5 % of articles in newspapers were found
which did not make use of any agency copy.
In these instances, the story is often solely
or principally based around personal perspectives
or case studies that have been researched
by individual journalists.
The study verified that at least 41 per cent
of press articles and 52 per cent of broadcast
news items contain PR materials which play
an agenda-setting role or where PR material
makes up the bulk of the story. This does
not mean that the rest of the print stories
or broadcast stories in the sample are "PR-free",
simply that no verifiable evidence of PR activity
could be identified.
So, when we think of the UK media as being
diverse we should remember that they’re
mostly getting their stories from the same
press releases. Where the PR material is largely
from PA agency services or news agency copy
. This isn’t because of any conspiracy but
because it is cheaper to do so. The UK media
doesn’t exist to provide meaningful information
to people, it exists purely to make a profit.
That is the economic model in which they operate.
The BBC doesn’t exist to make a profit but
as research shows it promotes the view of
the government,as we might expect, which is
part of the elite.
“The most striking finding was the dominance
of political sources: they accounted for almost
half of all source appearances in 2007 and
more than half in 2012.”
Trade unions, for example, made up 0.8% of
the sources at the BBC.
“the tendency towards an elite and relatively
narrow range of debate only intensified between
the 2 years. This is perhaps not surprising
in the light of the literature on journalistic
sourcing discussed above. Nor is it unique
to the BBC: In a second study carried out
as part of the same review, where we examined
national programming across the BBC, Channel
4 and ITV, there was a general pattern of
dominance of party-political sources “
It's also worth noting that just three companies
dominate 71% of the national UK newspaper
market – a market that may be shrinking
but is still crucial when it comes to setting
the agenda for the rest of the news media.
When online readers are included, just five
companies dominate some 80% of market share.
I’m not saying that the elite always have
a strong unified front. I am saying that the
elite consensus is likely to be strong when
fundamental class interests are at stake.
For example it is unified in its attack against
Socialist Corbyn. But as the elite can differ
from CEOs of large multinationals, aristocracy
and owners of medium sized business, in some
cases their internal interests will clash
and you won’t get a strong consensus, but
the mainstream media will still be biased
in framing the elite’s own interests.
As a recent example, let’s take Brexit.
The data suggests that the UK media as a whole
had a pro-remain bias but the UK print press
clearly had a pro-Brexit bias. Because in
the case of Brexit, the common elite consensus
did not exist, both the EU and UK are neo-liberal,
so their common interest, state capitalism,
is maintained either way. In the case of Brexit,
the elites were split as interests were in
the eye of the beholder. Murdoch clearly benefited
from Brexit and he summed it up with his quote
“I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was
so opposed to the European Union. “That’s
easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing
Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels
they take no notice.””
As for the Daily Express and Daily Star owner
"Dirty" Desmond at the time of the referendum,
the Guardian gives some insight.
“Unlike other newspaper owners, Desmond
did not have a fixed politics. But politicians
were occasionally useful. The Express was
a Labour title when he bought it, and he donated
£100,000 to the Labour party at about the
time when the initial takeover was cleared
by the then industry secretary Stephen Byers.
But it had historically supported the Conservatives,
so when it switched back Desmond was able
to say “it was always a Tory paper”.”
A decade later, as Nigel Farage was close
to hitting his political peak, Desmond changed
again. The proprietor handed Ukip £300,000
in 2014 and £1m in the runup to the 2015
election. “I am fed up with complacency
and cronyism, and I’m fed up with the floppy-haired
Eton club. I am also fed up with champagne
socialists who just tell people what they
want to hear,” Desmond said at the time.
The Express’s political editor, Patrick
O’Flynn, became a Ukip MEP in 2014 but as
the party became a joke in the post-Farage
era, Desmond’s support dissipated.
Here we see that the owner had no strong interest
in either pro or remain as either way he keeps
his privilege as the UK is just as neo liberal
as the EU. What he too cares about is personal
benefit.
According to vice: “he was furious when,
after a decade of greasing palms in Labour
and the Tories, both decided not to grant
him either a knighthood or a peerage. The
fallout from that colossal sulk was partly
why he ended up giving a million pounds to
UKIP just before the 2015 General Election.”
What about small business, why do they want
Brexit? Wetherspoon chief says staying in
EU bad for small businesses, he claims
“Brussels hinders smaller businesses, particularly
those firms who can’t afford to lobby Brussels
to curry favour. Jobs, wages and our economy
will thrive when we take back control and
Vote Leave.”
Here we see that some part of the elite want
a Brexit. What they want is to curry favour
in downing street as that will be easier than
in Brussels just like Murdoch found out, aka
State Capitalism.
It’s quite obvious why multinationals are
against Brexit, as the CEO of bentley said
“Brexit as a “killer” threatening his
firm’s profitability. “ or as P&O state
“cross-Channel ferries will be re-registered
from the UK registry in Cyprus to keep EU
tax benefits.” Again they’re maintaining
their own interests and the so called left
Guardian does not even question how these
may impact the average person. The real left
arguments are not even framed, all discussion
is what's best for the elites.
Let’s look more at the so called left biased
pro-remain? The Guardian is traditionally
seen as the mainstream left wing paper of
the UK and very much pro-remain. The Guardian
emphasized the economic consequences of a
leave result, but, more often than not, by
neoliberal principles that had alienated big
parts of the population. As an example:
“The Guardian view on the EU referendum:
keep connected and inclusive, not angry and
isolated”
Let’s leave the bias of the suggestion that
leaving the EU means you’re angry and have
no interest in connections aside. Let’s
look at why, it says
“Impose controls on a multinational corporation
and it will move to a softer jurisdiction.
Crack down on tax evasion and the evaders
will vanish offshore. Cap your own carbon
emissions in isolation and some other country
will burn with abandon. In so far as any of
these problems can be effectively addressed,
it is through cooperation. A better world
means working across borders, not sheltering
behind them. Cutting yourself off solves nothing.
That, fundamentally, is why Britain should
vote to remain in the club that represents
the most advanced form of cross-border cooperation
that the world has ever seen.”
The obvious flaw here is the suggestion that
leaving the EU means no co-operation, that
is just a false dichotomy. You can still cooperate
in a decentralised way. But that option is
not mentioned. But they’re pretty much using
the EU as a tool to be used to protect workers
in the UK. e.g. multinationals will move to
the EU, then we need to ask why wouldn’t
they move to Turkey,Russia,China etc? If this
was really left leaning, they would have least
mentioned that what protects workers in Britain
- and in other countries - is not the size
of the neoliberal EU but the people’s collective
strength. If the trade union’s would have
been interviewed and quoted, that would have
been more of a left leaning article. They
are not even mentioned.
No where does the Guardian mention that the
EU promotes the multinational corporations.
For example it did not mention that the EU
member states that have been 'bailed out'
by the troika have suffered the biggest fall
in collective bargaining rights in the world.
According to the International Labour Organisation,
collective bargaining rights have fallen by
an average of 21% across the ten EU countries
hardest hit by the economic crisis, and have
fallen by a massive 63% in Romania and 45%
in Greece.
It goes on to say that
“It is a fantasy to suppose that, if Britain
votes to leave, these victors would want to
maintain or extend protections for pensioners
or workers.”
I agree, it is a fantasy because the UK is
just as neo-liberal as the EU. But can UK
workers influence Downing street more than
Brussels? If Murdoch and Weatherspoons are
to be believed, then the answer is yes.
And just to finish off, it says:
do you want to live in a Britain in the image
of Nigel Farage? Yes or no? For that’s the
choice on offer. If the answer is no, then
vote remain.
First and maybe obvious, why is that the only
choice on offer? If this really was a left
biased paper, they would have mentioned Lexit
and the choice on offer that they provide?
At no point in the whole article does the
Guardian promote one left idea, it promotes
the neo-liberal EU elites as better than the
UK neo-liberal elites, it even explicitly
says it:
Those who vote to leave as a protest against
the elite will, in truth, be handing the keys
to the very worst of that very elite
Again, the UK elite may be worse but they’re
basically asking us to choose which neo-liberal
system to be under, hardly a left wing idea
at all. Either way the elites maintain their
class interests and the so called left leaning
Guardian defends that position.
Let’s look at social media, it is not mainstream
media as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc..
hire no reporters or send out foreign correspondents
into the field. Social media does not set
any agendas it only reacts to them, for example
many of the articles and videos on social
media are people’s reactions to the set
agendas or the mainstream media themselves
uploading their own content.
However, seeing that we have heard recently
of the left wing bias at tech companies regarding
demonetisation, I thought I could mention
it. In their own words on their “How to
earn money on YouTube” page, under the header
“Minimum eligibility requirements to turn
on monetization features“ it clearly states
“Create content that meets our advertiser-friendly
content guidelines“ all of the other requirements
are for subscribers, age, country location
etc.. Youtube doesn’t even try to hide that
it wants ad friendly content.
So, let’s look at the advertiser guidelines:
Two fall clearly in the realm of politics,
“hurtful” and sensitive events”, Hurtful
content is allowed in the context of comedy
and current tragedies are not even allowed.
There is no left wing bias when demonetising
right wing commentators, there is only the
economic need to ensure advertising revenue
is not lost. E.g., it is the economic system
which pushes for censorship, aka corporate
censorship. A few years ago, all of this content
was allowed, it has only been the increase
pressure of advertisers that has seen Youtube
take action. The so called left mainstream
media face the same economic pressures: For
example, Guardian 'changed Iraq article to
avoid offending Apple' except you don’t
hear about it as much as media owners keep
it quiet.
It is claimed that more right wing than left
wing Youtube channels get demonetised, I couldn’t
find any university research to back up this
claim, mainly because Youtube keeps its algorithms
and statistics a secret. However some research
made by the Guardian related to the US 2016
election in which states
How an ex-YouTube insider investigated its
secret algorithm
It Claims:
The Guardian’s research included a broad
study of all 8,052 videos as well as a more
focused content analysis, which assessed 1,000
of the top recommended videos in the database.
When all 1,000 videos were tallied – including
the missing videos with very slanted titles
– we counted 643 videos had an obvious bias.
Of those, 551 videos (86%) favoured the Republican
nominee, while only 92 videos (14%) were beneficial
to Clinton.
So, in order to know if Youtube does have
left wing bias we would first need to find
out how many right wing commentators are there
in respect to the left wing ones and do a
meta analysis to see if indeed proportionally
are the right more likely to be demonetised.
Also, are right wing commentators more likely
to fall foul of the advertisers guidelines.
Many people ignore that the left are being
banned, for example. Many left wing Twitter
accounts related to the occupy movement were
deleted with no explanation. “Twitter has
purged left-wing accounts with no explanation”,
Dozens of activists linked to the Occupy movement
are up in arms after their accounts were suspended
by Twitter.
You can even do a quick test yourself by signing
out of Youtube, clear the history cache and
type Hiliary Clintion into Youtube and see
what results you get. You will get both pro
and against. But even here, this should be
expected, as neither Hiliary or Trump are
a major threat to the elite class interests
anyhow. They both operate within the allowed
spectrum of debate.
This banning is not just limited to social
media. It’s just more noticeable as more
people are affected and they’re more vocal.
Any large media outlet which falls foul of
the allowed spectrum of debate from the stance
of the government gets banned or punished.
As mentioned with the Guardian and Edward
Snowden earlier. One other example which shows
hypocrisy:
There have been calls for the Russian broadcaster
RT to be banned in the UK because of bias.
Now, I’m not saying that RT is unbiased
but the BBC too has been proven in research
studies to be biased, especially in times
of war, the Iraq war especially being well
researched.
Russia Today has been threatened with statutory
sanctions by media regulator Ofcom after the
Kremlin-backed news channel breached broadcasting
regulations on impartiality with its coverage
of the Ukraine crisis.
Ofcom said all news must be presented with
“due impartiality … in particular, when
reporting on matters of major political controversy”.
This despite the fact that The BBC was accused
of a cover-up after spending almost £350,000
on a legal battle to suppress an internal
report about bias in its Middle East coverage.
A seven-year campaign to gain access to the
2004 document, which examined the corporation’s
coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
ended in defeat after the Supreme Court ruled
it could remain secret.
According to the research, there is a dominance
of elite, party-political voices in the UK
mainstream media, they’re biased to align
with elite interests and satisfy advertisers
needs. Even just looking at who owns the media
shouĺd give a clear indication that they’re
not going to be pro worker rights and pro
public ownership of common utilities. Although
the word left is quite far reaching, was Tony
Blair on the left? I would argue not but many
considered him to be. A bigger threat either
way however is corporate censorship, but we
hear little of that, instead the false left
right paradigm is thrown around.
If you liked this video, then please share
and subscribe.
