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Martin Cloake<\/strong> discusses issues around media manipulation and self-censorship, ownership, and the questions for a progressive cultural policy on the media to address. <\/em><\/p>\n On the morning after the last General Election, Channel 4\u2019s Jon Snow introduced the channel\u2019s post-election roundup with the following words: \u201cI know nothing. We, the media, know nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n He was not the only one to pick up on the fact that it is not just political discussion that has been transformed, but the way that discussion is framed. Of course, both can be seen as part of the political process, but understanding the way the media has set the parameters of the debate is key to beginning to understand what has happened.<\/p>\n For too long the public has been told what ideas are acceptable and what are not. Large parts of a media that established itself by reporting what happened became a media that commented on what happened. This was, to some extent and especially in the print media, a product of digitalisation and the era of instant news. But it increasingly became the case that much of the media presented interpretation as fact much more starkly than traditional notions of perspective had recognised. Where that ended up was demonstrated in 2017\u2019s General Election.<\/p>\n Reading the Labour Party manifesto, anyone with a passable historical knowledge of the history of the last 200 years and of the development of the Labour Party would have seen an ambitious social democratic programme. I need to be clear here, because the shaping of debate I\u2019m talking about means that \u2018social democracy\u2019 has come to mean something very different to that traditional definition. The social democracy I\u2019m talking about is defined as \u201ca political, social and economic ideology that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy\u201d.<\/p>\n Neoliberalism and the media<\/strong><\/p>\n Over the last 30 years, as neoliberalism has taken hold of every part of our lives, the idea of any intervention to promote social justice has been pushed to the fringes. That has happened to such an extent that intervention to promote social justice within the framework of a capitalist economy, denounced as misguided reformism by actual Marxists, is now presented as actual Marxism by establishment commentators. As establishment desperation began to set in in the days running up to last year\u2019s General Election, the bogey word \u201cMarxists\u201d was increasingly deployed to describe Labour 2017. (And if you want a definition of \u2018neoliberalism, by the way, you can do worse than read this<\/a> from \/\/medium.com\/@renegadeinc<\/a>“>Renegade Inc.)<\/p>\n The fact that people saw through the attempt to portray reform as revolution is very significant. Because the centre has been shifted leftwards. This idea of the centre has dominated UK politics for decades. It is presented as a scientific fact. The centre is the place where most people are, a fixed point, and the way to be successful in politics is to go there. Or so we are told.<\/p>\n But the centre is not fixed. Take this example. In 1830, if you had suggested women should be able to vote you would have been on the political fringes. If you said the same thing in 1930, you would have been reflecting mainstream opinion. The centre ground shifts because circumstances and attitudes change.<\/p>\n Occupying the centre ground was central to the concept of New Labour. That focus on the centre continued while the entire ground moved to the right. Margaret Thatcher had reshaped society by imposing a vision and seeking to take people with her. In this, she largely succeeded. So New Labour\u2019s pursuit of a centre ground already to the right of traditional Labour vision was already a retreat. What\u2019s more, presenting any achievement as centrist rather than left made the supposed unpopularity of left policies a self-fulfilling prophecy. To succeed, an idea couldn\u2019t be left of centre, therefore any idea that did succeed could not be left of centre. So instead of moving the centre ground left, it continued to move right. And that made it so much easier for those achievements to be undone by subsequent governments.<\/p>\n For all the success of the three New Labour governments, the party got five million fewer votes in 2010 than it did in 1997. The interpretation of that fact across pretty much the entire commentariat was that the centre was moving right. So the only conclusion was that if occupying the centre was the key, you had to move right.<\/p>\n But for increasing numbers of people, moving right wasn\u2019t delivering. And what\u2019s more, it was making Labour irrelevant. All they saw was a watered down version of what was already on offer. So they gave up. The last General Election was supposed to be the final act in a long process aimed at wiping out even the possibility of discussing left-of-centre ideas. It didn\u2019t work, because what people saw were ideas they liked, ideas they thought could and should work. And that was because those ideas were increasingly presented outside the parameters described above.<\/p>\n It was fascinating reading about the media strategies deployed by Labour in the election. Especially so when the accepted wisdom of the media strategy experts who got it so wrong was that Labour\u2019s media strategists were getting it wrong. Matt Zarb-Cousin was one of Labour\u2019s media strategists \u2013 he\u2019s well worth following on Twitter at @Mattzarb One of his tweets post-election day said that \u201cIn the last week of the campaign, 25% of UK Facebook users saw a Momentum video in their news feeds.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s notable about that is not just the reach, but the fact that the means of distribution and exchange \u2013 to coin a phrase \u2013 have changed. He went on: \u201cMomentum focused on producing quality content that would be organically shared. If your mate shares it, you\u2019re more likely to watch it\u201d.<\/p>\n The great Conservative communications guru Lynton Crosby was, said Zarb-Cousin, exposed because he used \u201canalogue methods in a digital context\u201d. The rules of engagement have changed.<\/p>\n There are signs that sections of the established media recognise this. But fewer that they understand it. The excellent Liz Gerard, @gameoldgirl on Twitter, mocked the stories in the printed press bemoaning \u2018fake news\u2019 and \u2018distortion\u2019 on an internet that was portrayed as misleading \u2018vulnerable younger voters\u2019. It is indeed a bit rich for some of the traditional media to seek to blame social media for spreading \u2018fake news\u2019 when too many in traditional media have played too fast and loose with the facts for too long. The ire of the traditional press big beasts cannot be too far removed from the effect new forms of media are having on their commercial model either.<\/p>\n The new, progressive media?<\/strong><\/p>\n As a result of all this, the cry for some time among those on the left has been \u2018create your own media\u2019. And the internet has helped that happen. But\u2026\u2026.<\/p>\n While there are some excellent sites providing in-depth reporting, analysis and opinion\u200a\u2014\u200aand which remember there is a difference between those three things\u200a\u2014\u200athere is also material that looks a little too much like what the traditional media has done for too long as well. Using methods we have criticised to get across a message we agree with cannot be the way forward.<\/p>\n Being left-leaning and working in the media has always presented a challenge. Asking awkward questions, trying to stand up claims, pointing out uncomfortable truths\u200a\u2014\u200aall these staples of the trade tend to irritate people whose primary concern is to get the line out. Equally, the almost religious fervour with which some in the media promote the mantra that all of us in the trade must be \u2018unbiased\u2019 means we do not acknowledge enough the fact that every individual brings a degree of bias to every situation. Which is why progressive media reformers have always argued for a diverse set of views to be encouraged.<\/p>\n Calls to reform the media seem too often to be calls to control or regulate the media. And that brings with it serious problems. Because who will make the decisions about control or regulation? Will their biases be acknowledged?<\/p>\n Some attitudes to the media on the left seem sometimes to be more about closing down views that aren\u2019t agreed with than anything else. It could be argued that it\u2019s a more honest approach than shutting down views by placing them outside the parameters of permitted conversation, but the end result is the same. Shutting down conversation is rarely a good thing.<\/p>\n The censorious tendency comes partly from a belief that \u2018the media\u2019 is to blame for the left\u2019s ideas not being accepted. But that\u2019s too simple a view, and one that assumes the vast majority of people are so stupid they will believe everything they read. I\u2019ve explained above why the media\u2019s role in setting the terms of debate is important, so I\u2019m not arguing that the media has no effect. I have much sympathy with the analysis in this piece from Press Gazette headlined Why Labour supporters may over-estimate the influence of the partisan pro-Tory press<\/a>, but I think it misses an appreciation of the role the press does have in setting the mood music.<\/p>\n While much of the press behaviour of recent times is rightly being called out, and while the growth of a more independent, DIY media should be welcomed, we can\u2019t simply seek to replace a right-partisan media with a left-partisan media. Not least because we should have confidence in the strength of our ideas. Reforming the media was supposed to be about getting a fair hearing for multiple views.<\/p>\n I worry, too, about enacting measures such as Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 for the same reasons as two of the more progressive newspapers, The Guardian and the FT<\/a>, did.<\/p>\n So there are lessons to be learned all round. The traditional media needs to understand what is happening, and to do that requires listening to the people who are making it happen. A particularly big challenge for traditional media is accepting that its audience contains people who may be more well-informed about a particular subject, and who can counter accepted narratives quickly and accurately. Those deploying newer methods, and those consuming what those methods disseminate, also need to look at the more traditional standards those working in the trade sought to use to see what needs to be retained. The sad thing about saying that is that \u2018traditional methods\u2019 means phone tapping rather than standing up stories and protecting sources in too many people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n Grenfell Tower and the media<\/strong><\/p>\n Barely a week after the Election, the fire at Grenfell Tower happened. The reporting of the fire and its aftermath prompted some of the fiercest debate yet on media coverage and the assumptions behind it. Many of us who remembered coverage of Orgreave 33 years before, and Hillsborough four years later, recognised some familiar tactics. Some elements of mainstream media sought to find individuals to blame, while others sought to portray angry residents getting organised as a \u201cmob\u201d. And any attempt to suggest that political decisions were to blame for what happened was denounced as \u2018making capital out of tragedy\u2019.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s be clear what that last accusation amounts to. It is an attempt to shut down discussion on what caused an event that led to people burning to death in their own homes, and that is leading to continuing suffering. When shutting down legitimate discussion is put forward as an accepted mainstream opinion, the reasons why people are opting to create and consult their own media\u200a\u2013\u200asomething John Pilger called the fifth estate \u2014 become clear. But what recent events have also shown is that this new media is not without fault.<\/p>\n There\u2019s been a feeling in the business for years that the media is disproportionately interested in itself, but the current discussion of the way it operates is directly connected to the way it interacts with people\u200a\u2014\u200asomething that elevates the discussion above the realms of media theory and into real life.<\/p>\n One of the best pieces I\u2019ve read on the subject is the take by Buzzfeed political editor @jimwaterson This Was The Election Where The Newspapers Lost Their Monopoly On The Political News Agenda<\/a>. It looks not only at how the ability of the traditional print media to shape debate seems to have diminished, but also at how new forms of media have changed the rules of engagement. That analysis, in itself, is nothing new, but where Waterson\u2019s piece moves things on is in examining those new media forms in more depth. And an observation he makes after doing this should make us pause for thought.<\/p>\n \u201cCrucially the lines between what is political reporting, what is political comment, and what is simply partisan internet ephemera seem to be blurring<\/em>\u200a<\/em>\u2014<\/em>\u200a<\/em>to little concern from an audience who don\u2019t distinguish between spoof videos, traditional analysis pieces, and celebrity endorsements.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s the bit about the audience having little concern for what is happening that stands out.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to believe the old myth that \u2018journalists must be impartial\u2019 to be concerned about that, and it\u2019s worth expanding a little on that idea of journalistic impartiality before moving on. Good journalism certainly should mean being curious, open to facts that challenge the writer\u2019s interpretation, and willing to consider opposing viewpoints. But to imagine that any individual living in any society is not shaped by their surroundings and experiences is fantasy.<\/p>\n One of the things that shaped me as I grew up was reading John Pilger in the Daily Mirror, and I tend to agree with his view on journalistic impartiality<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with those words \u201cimpartiality\u201d and \u201cobjectivity\u201d is that they have lost their dictionary meaning. They\u2019ve been taken over. \u201cImpartiality\u201d and \u201cobjectivity\u201d now mean the establishment point of view.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n That is all too often true, and is why I\u2019ve never been reticent about making clear my own take on issues I write about if I can. Something which, ironically, has made it easier for some people to immediately dismiss what I say. There are advantages in styling yourself as an impartial teller of truths.<\/p>\n But we seem to be reaching a point where what is happening is that some of the media emerging to challenge \u2018the establishment\u2019 is merely mirroring it. And where the response when this is pointed out is increasingly along the lines of \u2018who cares, the mainstream media have told lies and misrepresented things for too long\u2019.<\/p>\n Take an argument that broke out in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. The Skwawkbox, one of the new left-leaning sites, published a story headlined Govt \u201cputs \u2018D-Notice\u2019 gag\u201d on real #Grenfell death toll #national security.<\/em> The Skwawkbox story is here, so you can read it for yourself. All<\/a> that has changed since it originally went up is the headline and the explanatory note at the top. Just to fill you in on the argument, here\u2019s James Ball on Buzzfeed running a story<\/a> about the Skwawkbox piece.<\/p>\n