Next: sycophancy. Parts of the media don’t bother to even pretend that they don’t have candidates who they favour and ones who they don’t. James Corden may not be a journalist in the normal sense, but he is the sort of television front-man whose boosting of, and pleasantness towards politicians can have a big impact. So, when Corden does one of his soft-ball interviews it can surely only help the person on the receiving end.
His efforts to humanise Speaker Nancy Pelosi during lockdown, however, make one wonder if Corden isn’t a fervent Trump-supporter. When he went live to her house, where would Speaker Pelosi happen to be but in the kitchen. She was hanging out like any American mom, with a cashmere sweater delicately draped round her shoulders. The viewer was lucky enough to hear Corden ask what Pelosi keeps in the deep freeze.
How one hoped that there would be something embarrassing in there: class-A drugs, gin, the disembodied heads of her opponents. But, almost as though everyone knew this was the question he was going to ask, lo-and-behold Speaker Pelosi’s freezer — the size of the average starter home – was filled with ice cream. It turns out she likes ice-cream. She also likes chocolate. What can she say? She just likes the stuff, the crazy lady. If Corden had pressed further, he could probably have discovered that Pelosi also had a positive attitude towards new-born babies, puppy dogs and fluffy little kittens.
As I say, this soft-ball schtick is Corden’s ball of choice.
But Anderson Cooper of CNN? He is surely meant to be more than just an autocutie. He sometimes wears glasses. He has often been abroad. Earlier this week, Cooper and Doctor Sanjay Gupta had Joe Biden on their show as a guest. As with many other recent appearances by the Democrat Party’s nominee, Biden was all over the place. He had constantly to refer to his notes. He appeared on occasion to have got his notes muddled up. Without them he appeared able to wing it on occasion, but only by getting onto a talking point he has slipped into many times before.
Yet it wasn’t Biden’s performance that was so startling. It was the fact that his interviewers were so clearly willing him on. They didn’t interrupt him. They certainly didn’t shout over him. They sat there, and even when their eyes registered a flicker of concern about the answer he might be directing their way, it was swiftly replaced by the even clearer look in their eyes of them hoping he was going to pull it together and do well.
The fact that everyone is currently having to conduct interviews remotely could be blamed for some of this awkwardness. But it is in the final class – in which the interviewer turns out not to be so good without his supporting chorus — that Covid-19 makes its greatest exposure.
Most people have mixed feelings about Bill Maher — they like him when he agrees with them and dislike him when he doesn’t. Perhaps I should note that throughout his career I’ve always admired him. But there’s a problem with his show: the unnaturally close relationship between him and studio-audience. When Maher says something vaguely funny, the audience whoops and hollers. When a guest he disapproves of says something funny or wise that he doesn’t agree with, the guest is met with stony silence. It is made to seem as though it is very hard to get one over on Bill Maher.
It was only when someone who had been in the audience explained to me the warm-up procedures for the show and the fact that the audience is actually directed when to laugh, clap and applaud, that you realise how much power Maher has (far more than almost any other host) to be the one who decides which guests do well, and which points fly.
In lockdown, though, Maher has been deprived of this asset. And this past week he had Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw on his show. Crenshaw is a very impressive figure. A former Navy Seal, only in his mid-thirties, he is also a cerebral, restrained and very polite interviewee.
The ladies of The View among other programmes have already discovered how hard he is to isolate, denigrate and destroy in the way they ordinarily would with a figure of the political Right. But the Maher interview was fascinating. Not only because Crenshaw knew more about every issue raised than Maher did, but because it became clear that without the audience in the studio on his side, or the opportunity to turn to another guest when the wrong guest made the right impression, Maher was all at sea. When he wise-cracked it seemed inadequate to the task at hand. Crenshaw remained polite; Maher looked disrobed.
These are only a few examples — all from American media in the last few days — which exemplify a problem. A problem which — whatever its other faults — the British media has thus far avoided falling into.
The BBC matters for the same reason that CNN and other networks matter. These are the big beasts. They will almost certainly still be around once this is over, and for many years to come.
So when they go bad, the whole profession — the whole idea, purpose and justification of the trade — is threatened. When the British media apes its American equivalents, it may think it is ensuring its survival. It isn’t. It is hastening its decline in the only currency it should care about – the eyes of the viewing public.
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SubscribeI’ve been following all these US media stories (and others) in the US via brilliant podcasters such as Jimmy Dore and Tim Pool for some time now, and it really is horrendous. The Trump campaign produced a devastating ‘Nancy Antoinette. Let them eat ice cream’ commercial on the back of that grotesque woman and her fridge. And it struck me that an amusing meme might be Pelosi opening the drawer of the fridge to reveal the cold, dead body of Joe Biden.
What Douglas doesn’t mention is that the viewing figures for CNN and MSNBC are collapsing. Fox News is generally increasing their figures, and takes most of the top viewing rankings on cable. All that said, apparently two million people ‘cut the cord’ and decided to forego cable altogether last year, or in 2018.
BBC-NN are no better. Maitlis is appalling and the only consolation is that nobody watches Newsnight anyway. The idea of the BBC lecturing about inequality when its massed ranks of biased and overpaid know-nothings gorge themselves on a compulsory tax on the poorest on the land is just disgusting, utterly disgusting.
I began my ‘walk away’ from the mainstream media 20 years ago when I threw out the TV because I refused to fund the BBC. This was extended to newspapers a few years later, and then to magazines (the New Yorker and most other magazines have become nothing more than printed versions of CNN). It seems that more and more people are catching up with me. One survey revealed that 20% of people don’t trust the BBC at all, and another 28% are more likely to distrust it than to trust it.
It’s a great shame, i always loved and bought newspapers and magazines, and I respected journalists. But all that has gone.
Look at trust pilot for the reviews on the BBC 1 star out of 5 and only then because people can’t give it 0 stars.
They are trusted even less than 20% depends who you ask and where
What I despise most about the current BBC is its narcissistic identification with the cult of victimhood and identity politics (which is usually the politics of victimhood). Almost every online feature is yet another sickening onslaught of victim suffering, blaming, shaming and serminising. Its virtue signalling self regard is stomach-turning. It is grotesquely disingenuous too, because this ‘reaching out’ to victims everywhere is not actually intended to provide truthful insights into the nature of suffering, nor to help victims in any useful way (i.e by helping individuals develop resilience and resourcefulness) -it’s solely a tool for sanctimonious BBC virtue signallers to broadcast their saintliness to the world and bring the gullible and soft headed (though usually well meaning) into its narcissistic grip. It’s also become just really, insufferably, dull in its sanctimony. John Keats correctly observed that people hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us – I think not only because we know it to be manipulative but also because we recognise it as dull poetry – this is true for our media too and may be why the Beebs viewing figures are tumbling and why so many want to see it thrown under the bus of no licence fee renewal. It’s a great shame overall -a healhty BBC would be a great asset, but I fear it is too late -the progressives have infested the corporation and killed it with their politically correct sanitising.
I fear the conclusion here is a tad optimistic. British journalism, especially of the broadcast variety, has already jumped into the sewer; it just has a little further to fall than its American counterpart, but it’s doing a good job of catching up.
British journalism invented the sewer
They must have, “it flows downhill”…
I watched Boris Johnson’s announcement regards the lockdown, the media had been calling for a lockdown for several days and were pressuring for us to do as other countries were, particularly those EU countries they are so fond of, that evening on Newsnight Emily Maitlis was crowing over the news, so much so that she got it completely wrong, “only key workers were allowed to work” she announced several times with a grin on her face, I couldn’t believe how bad it was and turned the programme off, unfortunately when the news anchors who other journalists must emulate get so poor, then turning off is our only option, not paying the BBC licence fee must become an option in the future.
You’re quite a few years late. The BBC has been a joke for at least a decade. I can’t believe you somehow think UK journalism has standards.
Exactly
What could be more appropriate for the BBC than to plunge fully into the moral sewer of US style ‘journalism’.
The BBC is a former resident of that sewer, now at last it has excelled itself and resides in its palace the sewage works. I stopped watching TV several years ago, ditto the daily rags. Primarily the BBC is anti-British, anti-White and anti-Christian propaganda.
BBC myopic hypocrisy
Their day of reckoning is closer than they think. The Kuenssberg’s and Peston’s are in a for a shock.
The fundamental thing I love about Britain is the patience its peoples possess, to study and assess, before taking action.
Like the Brexit axe fell on the EU, so will Journo’s feel the weight of the British public.
Yes, Peston is dreadful. It was due to his constant presence in The Spectator that I did not renew my subscription to that magazine – and I have read The Spectator almost every week since 1980.
If you’ll indulge me regarding the monologue from Maitlis. One which I’ve complained to the BBC about. I’ve asked is she qualified to declare to all the terrified pensioners sitting in their homes “you do not beat this virus by being a fighter” etc. Leaving people with a hopeless feeling that there’s nothing they can do. I actually think even if there is nothing to do telling people there is, is likely to make them more calm and be able to rest which is proven to help but I digress.
I genuinely believe that people like Maitlis, middle class, sheltered from real danger (that’s fine) is suddenly scared by this situation as is normal for all of us. If you look at the type of people that supported her monologue the most it was the FPBE types but also the Corbynistas. The people that hate the government and in the latters case, the west, the U.K., capitalism etc.
I think her monologue was crudely “I am scared, how dare you make me feel like this, if you don’t sort your stuff out I’m going to set the pack of Corbynistas onto you” she’s been defended by her words on inequality, fine but consider the attack on words used to talk positively about a person in hospital. It was preposterous. Not to be considered her real message.
This is the problem with journalists. They are the news. Completely self centred. We see it all the time with the BBC. A group of post grads with dreams of becoming famous creating the news rather than presenting it.
How many times does James O Brien report on news through the lens of leave vs remain? Attacking 5G masts is caused by “vote leave idiots” but people standing in Westminster bridge 6inches from the next person clapping are just “idiots” and not vote remain Idiots.
I find that when the media covers a topic or situation where I have a reasonably high level of knowledge it ALWAYS gets it significantly wrong – especially if it’s even a little bit complicated. The difference with COVID is that the whole public has rapidly intuited that journalists and presenters are making it up as they go along and resent their laughable attempts to “hold to account” politicians who are dealing in real time with an unprecedented crisis
There is actually a named law – similar to Gresham’s/Murphy’s Law – when it comes to journalists always misunderstanding and misreporting any subject on which one has significant knowledge.
I tuned out of the BBC (for news, for classical music BBC R3 remains top-notch) ages ago, I used to enjoy the Today (6am) show as part of my daily routine. However, it began to exhibit some of the issues the article flags. Most of the time no interest in helping figure out the facts from the person being interviewed but rather a childish game of ‘let me catch you out’. Boring. So I tuned off. I now wake up to Classic FM, ChilFM or BBC Radio 3. My blood pressure is lower, am more relaxed and just as well informed. The key is to get your news via the written media (much harder to manipulate emotions in writing, easier to spot frames, and easier to refer back to who said what, when and why). ‘In the beginning was the Word’. Indeed!
Watch the Liddell/maitlis interview and she is terrible, shockingly bad and that is the BBC in a nutshell.
I and most people I know now no longer watch or trust a word the media say, it’s the same people who hate Brexit, trump, the Tories etc who are now moaning about PPE etc.
They have zero creditability any more after 4 years of bad losing and complaining and they will never get it back
IMO the examples cited by Mr. Murray are just indicators of the evolution of electronic media. into editorially biased and politically-motivated outlets, much like newspapers.
Cronkite-era TV news was largely a short “just the facts ma’am” presentation.
Newspapers did the cheer-leading or haranguing, depending on their slant.
Electronic media: TV, print, Internet – now they all have target audiences.
They have re-invented themselves into thought refuges of the like-minded where most news items can be easily formed and presented to fit the agenda-du-jour according to their particular political affiliation.
It’s never been easier to be comfortably ignorant and happy.
It’s all absolutely wonderful if you want that but if you actually want to learn something be prepared to spend time sorting the wheat from the chaff.
There are several versions of the facts.
There are reporters posing as entertainers.
There are entertainers posing as reporters.
Douglas, name one MSM UK journalist that has investigated, researched and presented a piece that has informed, educated, enlightened and edified it’s readers…say in the past 10 years?
In regard to local newspapers…having stories badly written with poor punctuation, grammar, spelling and sentence structure, stories from the week before and “reports” on local business that are really just advertising is why local newspapers have become defunct. Local politics is covered in the same way as national politics in the dead tree press.
There are no stories written in local papers that anyone wants to read. Local news also needs better journalists.
…that pass was sold when the MSM decided that Brexit was not a question on which views might legitimately differ…and that it was therefore their duty to resolutely opppose any populist rabble-rouser in the political class who dared to try to deliver it, in order to thwart the moronic mob of knuckle-dragging xenophobes who had dared to vote for it in the first place.
In consequence they became active participants in political debate, not observers of it…and now believe themselves entitled to ignore the fact that the Boris won a stonking majority back in December…and to bring down his Government at the earliest opportunity, and by any means possible…and that is exactly what they are trying to do in their “reporting” night after night at and after the daily press conference.
They are a disgrace…RSF
I am suspicious – call it a conspiracy theory if you like – that the main reason the BBC and Guardian support the lockdown is they hope if it carries on long enough it will cause such a mess that it will get rid of Boris Johnson – and they then believe they can get Brexit stopped or reversed.
So that says they are willing to see everybody else who doesn’t have a secure (so they believe, they might be wrong) public service job lose their businesses, jobs, homes maybe, in pursuit of of defeating “the Brexiteers.”
Whatever else you might conclude about that, it says they don’t believe in democracy, of which the Referendum result was probably about the only recent example since the election of Attlee who brought in the NHS and welfare state after WWII.
What I find depressing about this is the total lack of credibility that the main stream media journalists had who when seen pontificating about issues of which they have scant if any knowledge. To paraphrase Burton Malkiel, a Random Walk Down Fleet Street: Kuensberg History Edinburgh; Maitlis English Cambridge; Peston PPE (the Oxford equivalent of Media Studies), Oxford; Marr English Cambridge; Robinson PPE Oxford. There are exceptions: the long retired (?) James Burke Middle English Oxford but he immersed himself in science and what was wrong with using a qualified doctor, Ben Goldacre ? When we have an enquiry into this, I suggest the focus should be not on the government’s actions but the dangerous impact that these charlatans had.
This article, mainly because I was struggling to understand it, caused me to have a very hard think and look at the whole history of news media, journalism and broadcasting, which to be honest I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to before.
Quite simply, because before, what the media and journalists were up to never had such a direct impact on my everyday life – it certainly does now.
I therefore think that this idea that “trust in the media has plummeted” as a result of the covid-19 situation is incorrect, but merely that all of a sudden what the media has been doing or perhaps more so not been doing, now matters to the public more than ever before (since World War II anyway).
This is especially the case as apart from making comments on website articles, which are no doubt almost totally ignored by anybody with any real authority, the public have never had less of a voice – not allowed to protest or demonstrate or even have any public or indeed private meetings apart from “virtual conferences”, which are not at all suitable for taking collective action.
There is a real power when people are in a room physically together, which can’t possibly exist when all they are is disparate images on computer monitors or home TV screens.
So the normally silent majority has now become the almost utterly silenced majority, so naturally, whichever side of the lockdown debate they are on, they are angry that the journalists don’t seem to be representing their views.
Especially those like myself who are opposed to the lockdown, and feel as if they were watching a sporting contest in which “their team” was getting beaten about 200-0, not because their team or players aren’t any good, but because they have all been tied down to the playing surface, so are unable to move and have any chance of competing or fighting back.
And so we really do need to look at the state of the media, that currently almost entirely behaves as if it were a race of wind-up toys, which had only a limited number of responses output by pulling a string on their backs, and consequently no need nor use for a brain.
And when I say “a brain”, I’m not referring to IQ or academic qualifications, but the ability or even desire to think independently.
Which of course is a matter of opinion on who has got that, but personally I haven’t noticed anybody in politics at the BBC has got apart from Andrew Neil (who is however in my view politically biased) and Michael Portillo, also politically biased, but “a genuine loose cannon”, who actually dared to say what he thought.
e.g. he had long said Britain was not as an island fundamentally suitable to be part of the EU, and further, perhaps far more controversially (bear in mind he is ex-Defence Secretary under Mrs Thatcher, who acquired Trident from America, so surely ought to know) he said he did not believe the UK actually had an independent nuclear deterrent (i.e. likely under the control of America, as I had long suspected, before he said that).
One can imagine how popular his blanket dismissal of the EU made him with the PC obsessed BBC culture.
And I suspect that their apparently very popular flagship politics show “This Week” (the numerous even “A list celebrity” guests that had appeared on it evidenced its unique mass appeal), was mysteriously extincted, deliberately to split up this double act of Portillo and Neill for the sole reason of shutting Michael Portillo up.
Who appears now to have been excluded from any significant political input, and likely sentenced to a life exile on the railways. Though that is going to be very difficult for him now due to the lockdown, and it will be interesting to see how the BBC handle their close long-term association with him – I suspect he is going to be given a one-way ticket to reappear only on independent TV, like fellow “sinner” Jonathan Ross.
Because that appears to be the problem with all journalism and news media – at the end of the day, journalists need to be paid, and unless they really make a lot of money in another field like Russell Brand (who is now effectively an online journalist) has done with his movies/comedy tour, they are either going to have to be corporation “front men/women”, including the BBC, entertainers effectively, or they are not going to survive.
Briefly the history of all news media seems to have been newsletters started by the government or rulers, not usually for public consumption, but then only really due to the invention of the printing press did newspapers much become aimed at the general public as commercially viable.
And of course as apart from the Russian communist newspaper Pravda for example, they were run by wealthy people from either the upper classes with inherited wealth or influence with banks, or big businessmen like William Randolph Hearst, naturally unless state censorship intervened, they were politically motivated, which of course they already were when issued directly by governments or kings even.
The BBC of course is supposed to be politically independent, but I am not sure that is even possible, i.e. one may not overtly express a political view, but mere selective reporting is inevitably going to show political bias, and quite possibly so however hard you try not to do so, supposing anyone is even trying.
So for example the Guardian and BBC have reported almost all the scientists who supported the lockdown, but none or almost none who didn’t.
Of which latter there are many, at least one of whom got an airing on this website, as did Peter Hitchens, who said that he had not got anywhere near being heard at the BBC on the covid-19 issue, despite many previous appearances on other matters.
(my own theory incidentally is that the Guardian and BBC are egging Boris Johnson on to continue the lockdown long enough that he digs his own grave with it, with the goal of getting rid of his basically (as they see it) “populist government”, probably in the hope that once replaced probably by Keir Starmer or a Conservative EU supporter, Brexit can be stopped; but of course that’s a “conspiracy theory” and of course all those are untrue – just ask the BBC on that question if anyone is unsure)
But really, it appears just like the music industry, that in the Internet age can’t sell a lot of CDs or even tracks online, so has to give live concerts (The Rolling Stones are probably still planning their next tour somewhere despite this lockdown), it appears the only way an “independent journalist” who has a voice/mind of his/her own can now make a living is by going direct to the public, or a non-mainstream news agency like RT, as George Galloway has done.
There is an audience and appetite for truth, genuine inquiry, genuine independent thought, out there amongst the public, but not I fear much in the corridors of the BBC or the Guardian.
I picture editorial meetings at the BBC or Guardian in which the staff get told what the truths currently are, what they are supposed to think, somewhat like in some kind of communist or other dictatorship. Or possibly even the kind of “committee meeting” held by a James Bond villain like Dr No or Goldfinger, in which disagreement results in some trap door opening and the “wrong thinking” person ending up in a tank of piranha.
It’s likely not possible to have journalistic freedom as long as you are dependent on the salary of the person who controls what you say, unless there is somebody genuinely enlightened at the helm of the publication, which is not likely it seems in modern times.
The culture of political correctness has set in to such a degree that inherently says free speech is almost impossible because “somebody might be offended.”
As soon as this idea that views cannot be expressed with might offend people is allowed (though nobody apparently stops to ask whether such a concept itself might be of the most extreme offensiveness to those who wish not to have their free speech muzzled), that is the end of free speech.
What is of most interest is the way so called “comedians” like Russell Brand and numerous others have mutated into philosophers, who are basically also political activists.
That is the only way to reach the public now it seems in any depth, by speaking to people in concert halls who are clearly so desperate to hear the truth from somebody they are willing to pay substantial entrance fees to do so.
That’s the real judgment on the atrocious mainstream media, and the worst offender of all is probably the BBC, because that’s in theory the most authoritative (that’s where Boris Johnson speaks) and it’s also the one the public pays for forcibly, making its unrepresentative behaviour totally unacceptable and undemocratic.
The nation elects the government, but has no control whatsoever over the BBC, which in theory is supposed to be independent of the government, but apparently the government exercises a great deal of influence over it via Ofcom.
In a democratic society the public should surely be allowed to elect the controllers of the BBC, especially as they are paying for it.
But in reality, the fact they are not allowed to do that, shows that it is unrepresentative of them, just as is government itself under the First Past the Post system, which allows less then 25% of the electorate to dominate and rule the other 75% (Mr Cameron’s slim majority, subsequently lost by Theresa May, was voted for less than 25% of the electorate), and hence should replaced by proportional representation voting.
We are really witnessing the death of our mainstream media – it is like a blundering outmoded dinosaur that is about to be picked off by swifter smaller sharper creatures, and will – in its current form – soon be extinct.
As a follower of Eastern philosophy and wisdom, I’ll finish with a quote from the Tao Te Ching regarding that claim:
“What is against the Tao ( the way of truth and righteousness or cosmic law) does not Endure.”
Thus a Hitler, Stalin or other dictator, can rule for a time, but not ever forever.
And the same applies to the dictators in journalism, who will not allow a true diversity of views within their publications.
Great post. You have said it all.
As an American living in NYC, I really enjoyed this article and UnHeard in general. I have recent dropped The NY Times after 25 years as a paid reader. This is refreshing and seems to be honest journalism. Thanks, and I am a Dan Crenshaw fan too.
That Bill Maher interview with Congressman Dan Crenshaw was brilliant; Maher’s inadequacies were thoroughly exposed and Crenshaw came across as a very decent and intelligent man. I hope he continues to do well.
As someone said: “In the kingdom of the willfully blind the one eyed man is king”.
” “In the kingdom of the willfully blind the one eyed man is king”.
I thought of that one myself while watching it – I was so impressed with that guy I think he’d likely be a far better president than Trump – good manners are incredibly impressive in somebody who is very rational and incisive in his arguments also, because they are incredibly rare.
I think if you’re not brought up in a certain way, it’s nearly impossible to have manners like that – I wish my own were that polished!
I completely agree with Nigel Clarke. The British media have descended to a lower level than I ever thought possible. Thank goodness for unherd
I lost it with the BBC’s propaganda years ago, now they’re in full American mode, even something simple like reporting a murder is presented as it being the weapons fault “killed by a knife/gun/plank of wood” rather than the correct ‘killed with’ by a human murderer. The Pro Vice Chancellor reporting from Washington for the BBC has so much bias at times, even in his inaugural lecture, one can only wonder what would happen if an honest journalist challenged him and his BBC employers.
MSM, what does it mean? Main Stream Media & Men (who have ) Sex (with) Men were the two, can I add Minging Sewer Media to the definitions?
I shall add to the definitions MSMSM (Midden Stream Main Sewer Media).
It is certainly appropriate to highlight these particularly revolting examples of the US media. However, I would say that if you go beyond the mainstream, the quality of commentary and podcasts etc in the US is far higher than here. Indeed, even in the US mainstream I would say that one or two shows on Fox such as Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutveld are better than anything on British TV. At their best, US TV news shows are sharp, informed and to the point. I cannot really say that of anything on British TV or radio.
I have just watched an excellent hour-long podcast/discussion on the current situation and the future of the west with Victor David Hanson (I think that’s his name) on Uncommon Knowledge. Yesterday there was another very good, hour-long podcast/discussion on the same subject between Niall Ferguson and the former deputy PM of Australia (I can’t remember his name right now). People like Jimmy Dore (very left wing), The Hill (quite left-wing) and Steve Crowder (very right wing) produce excellent content every day. Then there’s Tim Pool, whose analysis of media tricks, lies and bias is fantastic. He knows how they work because he was once a part of it. Others like Dave Rubin and Steve Turley are always interesting.
It’s all a million times better than anything here, and they have introduced me to outstanding commentators such as Matt Stoller, Kyle Kolinsky, Dylan Ratigan (all leftists) and many others who pop up regularly. Listening to even two minutes of the BBC or Talk Radio etc (with the honourable exception of Maajid Nawaaf, who is great) is like drinking cheap chardonnay after a white Hermitage. It’s just garbage.
There are one or two quite good podcasters in the UK – Triggernometry comes to mind with interesting guests who are given time to outline their arguments. But even the half-decent ones such as the New Culture Forum (I think that’s what it’s called) with Peter Whittle are a long way behind their US equivalents.
You should check them out. It’s all on YouTube.
Actually I am a little unfair to UK podcasters/bloggers in the above post. You should check out Akkad Daily, We Got A Problem and the excellent Tahyar Mousi (or Tayhar Mousi). And, incidentally, it is Victor Davis Hanson, not Victor David Hanson.
It has come to something when you already know ahead of publication what slant or angle that particular newspaper/journalist will take. It makes the buying of that newspaper and the watching of that programme redundant.
I long to read an unbiased article that equally weighs up the argument, i can then decide for myself which i agree with, in many cases i may agree a little with both sides, and will then think more deeply about the subject. The article should inform me but in most cases it just polarises.
Please always remember the article you are reading is not there for you to be better informed on a subject, but is there to create further headlines, a story is measured by editors and producers by its reach and reaction, especially its social media reach.
Just look at the guests on political shows they are invited for shock value, because the producers know they are liable to make inflammatory comments, because these people are invited any semblance of sensible debate will never happen, i have listed some of the usual suspects.
Ash Sarker
Rod Liddle
Richard Dawkins
Owen Jones
Carole Malone
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Iain Dale
Shami Chakrabarti
James Whale
Katie Hopkins
There are plenty more,
but:
Where are the middle ground guests who may not have fully fleshed out their thoughts on a particular subject?
Where are the guests who do not have all the answers?
Where are the undecided?
Where are the guests who say “i dont know”
Where are the guests who are able to see the other persons point of view, as most of us do i real life.
If this poor level of reporting continues i can only see a continued downward slope for the print media, a reduction in TV news television, and what is happening already a growing reliance on news free Netflix (check their growth during this pandemic).
Quite rightly you ask ‘Where are the middle ground guests?’ But they will never appear, because the mainstream legacy media always sets up an adversarial (and usually incredibly superficial) debate between two opposing viewpoints. The result is invariably unlistenable or unwatchable, which is why I no longer listen or watch.
The British media is, arguably, even more of a sewer than the US media when you consider Ch 4, almost all of the BBC, Piers Morgan and countless others. That said, the BBC does at least give Tories the right to speak – they get their two minutes of justification just as Labour gets its two minute hate. Moreover, the bias is generally blatant. Everyone can see it, here and in the US.
As such, the really insidious media is now the big tech companies – Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. They routinely suppress conservative posts and videos, or simply ban conservatives from their platforms. Just today, Facebook removed a video of the Larry King show from 1993 that appears to provide more circumstantial evidence that Tara Reade was sexually assaulted by Joe Biden around that time. (You might not be familiar with this story as the mainstream media has deliberately failed to cover it). And there are countless other examples.
I watch CNN late most nights to get my two-Penneth worth of the American circus. I saw the Chris Cuomo piece… “I’m a little sweaty, I’ve just worked out, it happens” … it was excruciating, almost unbearable to watch. And Cuomo makes jokes about Trump’s narcissism!
ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’ seems to be leading the way amongst national broadasters in copying this style of media coverage
Why I come here for information instead of abc, cbs, nbc, cnn, ….
I am proud of having stopped paying for a TV licence nearly 12 years ago, in the wake of the Russell far king Brand/Jonathan far king Ross prank calls debacle.
As someone living in the US, I would agree with much of your critique of the “news” industry here (though I wouldn’t put James Corden in that category). I’m curious why you only chose examples from the left of center media? Why no Fox News examples of the points you raised?
I think “the big beasts” such as BBC, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBC Canada, ABC Australia are as you have described abandoned journalism and traded it for their role in the CULT of Neo-Marxist Feminazism.
I do not use the the term Cult lightly. The Far Left is a Cult religion by definition because it fulfils the Cult Definition:
I.e. A religion or sect, generally considered to be extremist or false, under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader for whom members exhibit fixed, even religious, veneration.
Groups that meet this definition tend to have an escalating negative impact on the lives of followers. These groups exhibit many common characteristics:
One charismatic leader is the group’s sole authority on truth; only this leader decides, or has the right to approve, all policies and practices.
Members are zealous, protective, and unquestioningly committed to the leader.
Members regard the leader’s beliefs and practices as truth and law; the leader affirms and enforces this idea.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or punished.
The group’s leadership dictates how members should think, act, and feel.
Members require the leader’s permission to change jobs, date, marry, or have children.
The leader tells members where they can live and how to teach and discipline their children.
The group uses public humiliation or punishment, debilitating work, sleep deprivation, or other practices to create group-think and to suppress individualism and doubt.
Criticism or jokes about the leader or group are taken very seriously and likely punished.
The group is elitist, claiming special status for itself, its leaders, and its members.
The leader and members maintain theirs is the only path to truth and salvation.
The problem for the mainstream media is that the wrong leaders have been appointed. This fact is sacrilegious to the dogma of the Neo-Marxist Feminazi Cult.
The current leaders believe in individual rights of self-determination the cult embraces state determination (A fascist and totalitarian view of governance).
The current leaders want small government with few regulations to give individuals freedom to find their own prosperity and happiness while the Cult needs everyone to be state dependent.
The media are disciples of the Cult, extensively bred by the Marxist dominated higher education system. Indoctrination is 84% dependent on graduating from higher education.
The supporters of Trump and Johnson are mostly not graduates. Interestingly the university graduates that are supporters of the heretic leaders of the US and UK tend to be for the majority mature age students that first had to work before they could afford their degree.
I think it is clear that the majority of the public have seen behind the great and powerful Oz’s curtain that was built in academia and subsequently the media and government. We are witnessing the wholesale rejection of this Cult and it’s dogma, spewed from the pulpit of the “Big Beasts” such as the BBC and CNN.
As a result, the best conversation that has begun in UK, Australia and Canada is to totally defund the BBC, ABC and CBC. CNN as a business has lost 1/5 of it’s propaganda force by the fall in viewership. I look forward to that day they all atrophy and die so that the Cult can die with them.
A perfect description of the Christian Cult. Well done.
Spot on,not only the BBC are in decline but the newspapers in the UK too,especially the Sun and the Daily Express to name a few.The better papers have moved online (The National and The Canary are examples of this) so not only are people are moving away from the BBC but the newspapers as well!
All I want from the media is information.. to know what is happening, in the most impartial and factual manner they can manage. I am OK for opinions and share very few of the ones I have, with the average journalist .. the mainstream media here in England is full of pompous, insufferable writers and commentators like Matthew Parris and his ilk, which we can very easily do without. Bring back The Times as a newspaper of record!
But having said, that I didn’t really object to Emily Maitlis’ little diatribe. she seemed to be expressing an honestly held opinion and a manifestly correct one. Every now and again, why not? What do you want her to do, sit there like a dummy?
Sorry, I don’t find her views ‘manifestly correct’. And her pompous, sneering style & portentous delivery makes me want to vomit. “Well the government wants us to believe … but is this REALLY true??” Followed by a one sided discussion ‘proving’ the government is totally useless. As for the bumptious, grinning 12 year old eunuch she uses as a political ‘expert’ …
I was only talking about *one* view, which was that coronavirus does not affect everyone equally but bears much more heavily on some than on others. If you don’t think that is manifestly true, please explain ..
Maitlis DOES sit there like a dummy, do her lips move ? I’m sure Madame Tussaud’s could replace her with a better looking dummy, or perhaps a lifesize sex-doll dummy that some men use.
Hmm. Looks like I overstepped the mark with my original comment. Suffice it to say I don’t regard Maitlis’ opinions as ‘manifestly correct’.
Me neither .. but *that* one was, was it not? Or do you believe coronavirus DOES bear down equally on everyone?
I also like Maitlis’ speech. It appeared heartfelt which is lacking in most journalism now which so carefully weighs the politics more than facts
Re. your last question…. the answer is NO; that is not what she is paid large remuneration, funded by taxpayers (not voluntarily) but by out-of-date law (if one owns a television. The BBC Charter which claims to ‘inform, educate and entertain’ does not include any suggestion that narcissistic interviewers should abuse invited guests and defer only to those who agree, with the personal, generally unformed, and often hysterical opinions of the interviewers. Matthew Parris and Emily Maillis are merely two of many such ‘pompous, insufferable … commentators’.
Ergo they are gaining their large salaries by deception and are an insult to the intelligence of a very large number of BBC listeners and viewers.
I accept the points about American TV hosts, but in terms of bias I would still take them any time over the BBC, notably the Today Programme.
Yes, the American news media is a sewer. But why this article attacks the liberal media only, I have no idea. The current government under Trump and Fox news has been presenting some kind of alternate reality that horrifies the majority of Americans. Just look at the pandemic, and how he won’t let medical professionals manage it and early on claimed there would be 15 cases and it would just disappear one day, like a miracle. Fox news only parrots what he says and embellishes it. Yes, Chris Cuomo’s emergence from the basement was a fluff piece, James Corden is a t**t with a talk show. Similarly Bill Maher has a talk show, but he’s a comedian not a politician and isn’t as knowledgeable and he pretends. The real horror to me is having to flip back and forth between various news stations to try and get a balanced view of what’s going on. Your point is correct, every statement is politicized and the truth is very hard if not impossible to come by.
At last !
Some media (Douglas Murray / Unherd) has woken up to the boredom and un-subscribable-to ‘gotcha’ jouranlism.
Yet alll of them are at it. Brenda O’Neill has for some time, but even Lionel Shriver in the past week.
If the desperation that Douglas describes is true then we are seeing the results.
Oh dear,
The long white hair and a pointed white beard immediately tells us everything about Raoult….
Next !
Actually this comment (containing no actual information or reasoning but only an insinuation that sound judgements of a person’s scientific competence can be made from mere appearance) immediately tells us “everything about Lee Johnson”.
Thank you, that was the point I was making
I’m going to venture one thought. The writer doesn’t have, at this time, ANY kind of worries about where his next paycheck will come from, who will grow, process, transport and supply his food, who will make sure there’s electric power. I’m pretty sure he may think that once this crisis is hopefully over, the world will just be this long wished for Nirvana.
Let’s assume, just for kicks, that the country decides to just kick back and relax, and spend the wealth away. WHO, when it’s finished, will produce it again? It’s going to be a rude awakening.
This reeks of self righteous hypocrisy!!! The British media invented “sewer media” with their relentless, unscrupulous sewer-dive exposes Into people’s personal lives. Remember Daily Mail? News of the World? Please Mr Murray mind your own pots before calling out other kettles
The media – a catch-all if ever there was one is in decline. Really, well who would believe it? Is there no end to the delusional writer’s who frequent this site. Never mind the main stream. On Unheard one would like to think slightly more nuanced and thoughtful articles would find a home. Oh! dear what a disappointment.
Here is the problem – how to constructively even suggest that writers have clearly missed the point, done no fact checking or research and although everyone is entitled to their own opinion are presenting, at least to this reader, sloppy low quality writing which tends to point at the ‘wanna be’ acclaimed superstar the obvious truth that that person is an idiot. Or perhaps not! Maybe it’s the people who pays them and they are only following the latest trend.
I do not watch the celebrity LED ‘news’ on TV. I stopped watching any TV many years ago. I no longer buy newspapers. Have no interest in social media. So how to follow what goes on. In a limited way the internet. Mmmmm…!
For an example of what is wrong try the Today program on the BBC. This is interesting for the pips!!! Power mad, laughingly called reporters constantly interrupting – do they get paid by the number of interruptions per minute. Following the script of ‘whim of the week’. Who knows, they get paid out of my pocket, so who cares. I give this bloated institution a triple A. Arrogant, Asinine. Abominable.
Yet with or without all the misdirection, fake news, lies, ignorant cretinous behaviour from the media. Life goes on. Keep well, stay safe.
So, Unherd condemns Plaquenil. Meanwhile generic drug makers all over the world continue to up production of hundreds of millions of doses and give many of them away free while governments ban exports to conserve their national supplies and, in the case of India, recommend it as a preventative treatment for much of their huge population. This is VASTLY more than the pet project of a single French doctor. We’ll see who is right soon enough.
I can’t help thinking the author of this piece needs to cast his net a little wider if his intention really is to reveal the “sewer” of US news journalism. What about Murdoch for starters? I am indebted, however, for the clip of Nancy Pelosi disclosing the contents of her freezer…Divine!!!
Such a terribly biased piece. Murray certainly hasn’t heard or come across any American conservative outlet in his life. He didn’t even bother to refute anything said by Emily in her opening. Wonder what he thinks the job of the media should be.
I agree with a lot of what the article had to say and I am no Particular fan of Emily Maitlis or the BBC. But to be fair someone had to counter the the unsaturated, unchallenged commentary on the heroic great leader taking on Covid 19.
Their is an air of telenovela drama that plays out every day of Boris Johnson and Covid 19 unfolding unchallenged on our screens each day and indeed continues today with the birth of his baby boy.
Not everyone who gets Covid 19 as severely as Boris and Carrie are having such happy albeit dramatic time of it.
I would be more impressed with Douglas’s argument if he wasn’t so obviously one-sided. Just another go at the so called liberal establishment; and the right wing press, such as Fox News, gets a free pass. Predictable.
You have a point, of course. That said, I watch quite a lot of Fox and find it to be reasonably fair minded. Tucker Carlson, for instance, will criticise Trump or The Republicans. And they do at least allow one or two other voices, such as that Juan guy. (He’s as thick as a brick, but never mind).