British broadsheets consider Europe to be of such importance that leader articles on the subject are always written by the most senior member of staff. The Eurosceptic Daily Mail’s Chief Leader Writer said in 2003: “In a sense it [Europe] is in the bloodstream of the paper. It’s what makes the paper tick. It’s about standing up for sovereignty for this country, not being sucked into this amorphous super-state.”
And yet there is almost no coverage of European politics in the British press, and no British tabloid has a European correspondent. The Daily Mail’s Chief Leader Writer said: “We couldn’t report on what is going on in Europe, and no paper can because the readers won’t wear it. It is simply not conceivable that we would cover, for example, the European Parliament.”
In the place of coverage we have comment. Voters cannot engage meaningfully with a democracy they know so little about, and perhaps that is the intention. The British are being led by the nose by newspapers that are so avowedly Euroscepticic that they are content only to criticise the EU, not cover it.
The British are disaffected with politics and politicians, especially in the wake of the recent and relatively petty expenses scam, and yet we have one of the cleanest, most stable, functional democracies in the world. The free press helps to keep politics clean and voters engaged, but as the latest scandal dies down we see that the cost is a sinking disillusionment with the whole democratic process.
(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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Why call the tabloids Eurosceptic when they are clearly Eurotoxic?
Why not try and understand an alternative point of view? Eurotoxic? - there’s a new one! The vast majority of people in the UK are fully aware that our entire relationship with what was only supposed to be a 6-nation Common Market, was achieved through betrayal. It has been progressed through deceit and duplicity, and we end up ruled by an overarching and overweening superstate.
“….relitively[sic] petty expenses scam…”? You’re right.
It costs £170 million a year to run the Houses of Parliament. That’s 4 days membership fees for the E.U. - by the U.K.
In my 51 years of travels, I have met 1 person who thinks the E.U. is a good idea.
“Why not try and understand an alternative point of view? Eurotoxic? - there’s a new one!”
I think what Ralf Grahn was getting at was that the Daily Mail clearly didn’t try to understand different points of view or cover political events - Euroscepticism implies some level of being informed, and the Daily Mail seems to revel in being a newspaper that, well, doesn’t think it’s relevant to cover news stories when it comes to the EU.
What annoys me is how often these kind of papers invoke the public interest and their role as being vital to democracy in order to cover the sex lives of celebraties/politicians. Especially since the same papers rarely cover anything of political value even in national terms, never mind European terms.
Newspapers should report news. If they want to be a glossy magazine, then that’s their own business, but they shouldn’t invoke the whole “fourth estate” thing for gossip stories.
Perhaps newspapers should be required to cover a certain amount of national and European news per week (leaving the editorial take on it and choice of news independent), and have information on what kind of legislation is coming up so citizens can mobilise against it if they want. In return there could be tax breaks for newspapers hiring their own correspondents for political news, instead of just buying it off some of the big news agencies.
If they don’t want to have a certain amount of political news, then perhaps it should be a breach in advertising to sell themselves as a “newspaper”.
@ eurocentric
Each time I visit the EUK (maybe once or twice a year) I am disappointed by the quality of the “news”paper medium.
One-sided opinion and gossip seems now to pass as news. I hadn’t realised just how important TV and film people are - to the UK public, anyway. Serious debate (horror!) is totally absent.
What constitutes “news” is a matter of public preference. So your ideas, however worthy, seem unlikely to succeed.
“What constitutes “news” is a matter of public preference. So your ideas, however worthy, seem unlikely to succeed.”
True, and it’s also incredibly hard to judge just what exactly the public’s preferences are. The whole process of news production isn’t exactly that open.
Still, I think there should be one or two pages set aside for upcoming legislation/political news from the national and European level - all other news topics picked by the paper itself, and the focus of the legislative/political news and editorial slant would be up to the newspaper too. I just really think that the printed media has declined in the UK so much that it’s distancing people from politics and perhaps even damaging the functioning of democracy.
An extra 2 pages (with tax breaks for extra reporters, if hired) shouldn’t really be that much to ask, surely…?
[...] Daily Mail’s Chief Leader Writer We couldn’t report on what is going on in Europe, and no paper can because the readers won’t wear it. It is simply not conceivable that we would cover, for example, the European Parliament. [...]
“Perhaps newspapers should be required to cover a certain amount of national and European news per week”
Typical socialist, always wanting to control everything.
The British press actually gives the EU an easy time. If the true extent of the corruption in the instutitions were known, the whole of Europe would be marching on Brussels.
“Typical socialist, always wanting to control everything.”
Well, if newspapers are claiming social privilages, then they should have social responsibilities. And I’m not proposing that the editorial line or the choice of topics the newspaper could focus on should be “controlled” at all.
I’m sure there would be a market for newspapers to report on the corruption where ever it is at an EU and national level, and that would be a public service. But the newspapers (and other media) aren’t doing that; they’re not even researching or investigating what they’re reporting in this instance.
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