The Rightwing Media Swamp
The descent of the media in this country, and of wider public discourse has been a running theme of this publication for over a decade. The recent failure and flop of new far-right broadcasting projects, despite vast sums of money being poured into them is not the subject of celebration. Talk TV and GB News have been disasters, but some have argued this is not because their views are out of line, but because their views are everywhere.
Nesrine Malik has chartered the phenomenon of the failure of what she calls the rightwing media ‘swamp’. GB News has lost half its value since it launched last year. Ratings for Piers Morgan’s Talk TV are pitifully low. Tom Newton Dunn didn’t register a single viewer for half of his evening broadcast. Malik explains why this is not a triumph:
“The repositioning away from ratings to views, despite the former securing advertising, suggests that the entire model of rightwing TV is adjusting its course from commercial viability to sustainable loss, with the payoff being prominence in the discourse. The bad news is that this model is floundering not because there’s no appetite for inflammatory, opinion-based news. It’s because there’s too much. In fact, the appetite is so huge that it feeds off, and is fed by, the very mainstream media that these channels thought they were differentiating themselves from. The rightwing media swamp isn’t any less fertile. It’s full.”
The right and far-right have other fish to fry, with a terrified BBC, and a media landscape dominated by Britain’s tabloid red-tops, new contenders outwith the ubiquitous Reddit and similar platforms are multiplying. The Spectator, Unherd, Spiked and others jostle with Guido Fawkes and a litany of other ridiculous online publications spouting forth opinion pieces under the euphemistic guise of “free speech”, “open platforms” and “rational debate”.
The far-right traverse both the feral nooks and crannies of the web and the corporate mainstream.
As Aaron Bastani has noted: “Before 2021, Britain already had the most rightwing press of any liberal democracy. Last October, newspapers owned by Viscount Rothermere – a close friend of David Cameron and a tax-avoiding ‘non-dom’ – accounted for 35% of all circulation, with a further 25% owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. When the holdings of both Evgeny Lebedev and the Barclay Brothers are included – the former who was recently made a peer by the Tories, the latter being one-time party donors – just under 75% of all national newspapers are controlled by Conservative-supporting billionaires.”
The Telegraph, the Express, the Daily Mail, and The Sun jointly hold huge readerships and a symbiotic relationship with the broadcast media (‘what the papers say’). Britain’s new-right is a vast network of influencers, columnists and gatekeepers from the celebrity icons of the likes of Peston, Kuenssberg and Neil to the lower-grade scribes of James Delingpole, Rod Liddle, Alan Cochrane, Joanna Williams, Fraser Nelson, Brendan O’Neill, Tom Harris, Alex Massie, Neil Oliver, Jeremy Clarkson, Douglas Murray, Ella Whelan and a dozen other outré enragé edgelords.
Radio Scotland regularly picks the editors of right-wing tabloids for comment, and the relationship is circular: they have influence ergo their views have importance, so get them on.
Sleeper Agents
The conveyor belt – or is it a revolving door? – of Conservative advisors and politicians and editors has been well-documented – from the unfortunate Allegra Statton (wife of James Forsyth, political editor of The Spectator), to Rebekka Brooks and Andy Coulson and beyond.
But it gets worse. Out of the primordial soup of this are born demons far worse than the racist, reactionary splutterings of the aforementioned. In desperation for clicks and views these failed projects will outbid each other for outrage like the Shock Jocks before them. Now the toxification has turned to Foxification. The weirder outliers of the web, the conspiracy leagues and the far-right libertarians are now swirling around the tv studios of the British right. Check this:
‘We have been taken over by sleeper agents that have been placed in our government…the British public needs to wake up.’
Lois Perry from Car26 says ‘democracy is dead’ in the UK and that the democratically elected Government ‘has been overthrown.’ pic.twitter.com/z6LhFpzYVW
— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 18, 2022
“It’s funny the way it all gets back to China”.
“Joe Biden is basically on the take from the Chinese Communist Party”.
Huge if true.
It’s easy to mock (and we will) but the talk of ‘sleeper agents’ is beyond caricature and the code-words of ‘globalist’ and ‘technocrat’ are dog-whistles. This is like someone unleashed 4Chan and stuck it on the telly with a Butcher’s Apron-logo. This is Reds-Under-the-Beds stuff from the 1950s. It is laughable but it is also a sign of where we are. Malik’s analysis is essentially right, this is a monoculture, “a raging furnace of rightwing provocation, spitting out lies, fear and spite, shaping a political culture of miserliness and insularity”.
It’s why shaping alternatives, like this, under-resourced but determined outlet (and dozens elsewhere) is more important than ever. It might feel like a pointless exercise in the face of such dark money and power, but an alternative media does exist. Support us here if you can.
The ‘right-wing media’ only exist because people choose to read them.
Nobody is forced to read the ‘right wing’ press unlike in socialist societies where the only legally press available was what the state decreed. No right wing views in those societies. Is that what you would prefer?
In the meantime will check my latest utility bill and if I can make a contribution I will, but you need more articles on football and celebrities. Not that I’m trying to buy editorial control!
Yep, it all comes back to the self-deceptive rationalisation that the vast majority of folk are too blind, stupid, or corrupted by evil influence to know what [I know] is good for them.
Great article Mike.
Colin, are you saying they’re not?
As an example, take immigration (the opium of the people). Prior to the Brexit referendum the number of non-EU migrants granted asylum (by the Tories) outstripped migrants arriving from the EU. None of the taxes the migrants generated was put back into health, education, housing, policing etc. thus leaving those services stretched. The Tories and their right-wing press then placed all the blame on immigration, the cause of which was supposedly the EU. If all you read is right-wing views, how are you supposed to discern otherwise?
SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE BIAS WATCH
Independence related articles on MSN since referendum date announced
Anti-Neutral-Pro = 110-4-5
No, I’m saying that the conceit that the vast majority of folk are too blind, stupid, or corrupted by evil influence [e.g. of the ‘right-wing press’] to know what the righteous know is good for them is a self-deceptive rationalisation on the part of the righteous.
It’s a common conceit among evangelists on both the ‘right’ and the ‘left’. MacDiarmid called it “the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt…”.
So, it’s impossible to influence them then and state-controlled media is just a jolly good wheeze?
I do agree that its reductive to say that this messaging = this political result. It’s not as totalised as that .
But equally propaganda exists and works and the powerful own the media for a reason, do they not?
Interesting that broadcast media was never devolved.
It’s mighty difficult to influence people, which is why ‘left-wing’ evangelists rationalise their failures as the fault of a ‘right-wing’ press and ‘right-wing’ evangelists rationalise their failures as the fault of a ‘left-wing’ press.
And ‘state-controlled media’, insofar as its a thing, isn’t the jolly wheeze it used to be. There are myriad alternative media channels from among which people can and do choose the information they prefer to consume.
And the [regulation of] media broadcasting wasn’t devolved because, across the UK, it isn’t a government function. Media content regulation in the UK revolves primarily around codes of practice, which are drawn up by a variety of bodies that are either entirely or largely independent of government, following wide public consultation. In some cases, these codes of practice have been developed by bodies with statutory powers over the media while, in others, the responsible bodies have been established by journalists themselves. In addition to these codes, the broadcast media are subject to a small number of specific content rules, and all media are subject to laws of general application, such as those relating to defamation, obscenity and hate speech.
The print media is entirely self-regulating in the UK and operates free of any specific statutory rules. They have has established the Press Complaints Commission on its own initiative, and this body has developed a code against which to measure journalistic standards.
For the broadcast media, two broadcasting acts set out broad categories of material which should be covered by codes of conduct but leave detailed elaboration of these categories to regulatory bodies. These acts provide for the establishment of various independent regulatory bodies to apply the codes. The codes provide guidelines for information mediators/content providers rather than clear prohibitions on specific types of content.
The world’s almost infinitely complex and it wouldn’t be possible to provide clear rules about what is and isn’t allowed to be printed or broadcast in all situations. A variety of competing interests will generally be in play, including the various private interests that shape the editorials or ‘spin’ of different information providers. However, the need to attract and retain audiences means that editorials draw heavily on constantly evolving ‘community standards’ and the protean concept of ‘public interest’.
But the guidelines that obtain at any one time aren’t ‘laws’, nor are they enforceable by the state, and their application depends upon the information mediators’ own constant awareness of the prevailing public ‘mood’. This requires them to be flexible and gives the content providers scope to decide for themselves how to mediate or ‘spin’ the information they provide. It’s for this reason that the codes quiet rightly remain inherently vague, leaving considerable scope for varying interpretation and presentation of information.
It also means that regulatory and standard-setting bodies have considerable leeway when balancing complaints from the public with regard to the content it’s spun and the freedom of mediators to mediate the content they provide as they see fit, in accordance with their own editorial interests.
The idea that information can be provided impartially and without bias has long since been abandoned as a pipe-dream.
“It’s mighty difficult to influence people, which is why ‘left-wing’ evangelists rationalise their failures as the fault of a ‘right-wing’ press and ‘right-wing’ evangelists rationalise their failures as the fault of a ‘left-wing’ press.”
It’s not difficult at all. I’ll use football as an example to keep John Learmouth onside. In last season’s SPFL Rangers were awarded 10 penalties and Celtic 6. Of Celtic’s 6 penalties, 4 were awarded when they were already in front and coasting, 2 whilst level. Of Rangers’ 10 penalties 8 came while they were level or losing. If you struck all penalties scored by both sides from the record that season, Celtic would’ve ended up on the same points whereas Rangers would’ve had 9 points less. This bias is a regular feature in Scottish football, but it is dressed up as “the old firm bias” suggesting that both teams regularly benefit from the generosity of referees. It’s a story in itself that the most attack minded Celtic side since Jock Stein would end up with less penalties than Rangers (Rangers are already 2 up this season) but the nature of the penalties says it all. Do you ever hear anything about it from our right footed press? Yes, they regularly propagate the “old firm bias” myth. Even the football pundits (some of them ex-Celtic players and managers) won’t stick their neck out on the subject for fear of not being asked back. About the only who does is Kris Boyd but he’s actually trying to invert the bias.
If we get independence, please tell me how the yoons can possibly blame the left-wing press for their defeat.
SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE BIAS WATCH
Independence related articles on MSN since referendum date announced
Anti-Neutral-Pro = 110-4-5
PS Your post is antisemitic. “How can it possibly be antisemitic” I hear you say. It’s just that it’s that long few will be bothered to read it to find out it isn’t. The Express (among others) regularly influence people with an angry headline knowing many won’t even read the article,
Apologies, I meant John Learmonth.
‘If we get independence, please tell me how the yoons can possibly blame the left-wing press for their defeat.’
Because the Unionists on both the ‘left’ and ‘right’ think they’re right, deceive themselves that the those who voted are too blind, stupid, or corrupted by evil influence to know what they (the Unionists) know is good for them, and need to invent an ‘anti-unionist media’ to justify their conceit.
Everyone’s at it.
But we of the left don’t need to invent anything. We’re practically buried alive.
Indeed, Tom, and those who disagree with you are too blind, stupid, or corrupted by evil influence to know what you know is good for them.
Like I say, everyone’s at it. The curst conceit o’ bein’ richt damns the vast majority o’ men.
You mean I might die and discover that Rupert Murdoch loved me after all?
No. You”ll be dead; there will be no ‘you’ to discover what anyone felt about you.
If you can’t discern the dice are loaded then you remind me of the old poker saying “If you’ve been playing poker for half an hour and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”
PS The “old firm bias” in evidence again today.
Of course the dice are loaded. The dice are always someone’s dice. But there’s more than one crap game in town; it’s incumbent on you to go out and find one in which the dice are loaded in your favour or start one of your own.
But there’s only one crap game and its compulsory you play.
Away, Tom! There’s are myriad news and information channels, and no one makes you view, listen to, or read any of them. It’s a poor show if you can’t find the news and information you like.
The crap game is the UK, the players are the voters. I can tell the guy next to me the game’s rigged but meanwhile the other players are being flooded with leaflets singing the praises of the game. I could emigrate but where to? They’re all rigged in favour of those with the money.
The only time the UK voted for a socialist govt was after the second world war and the fact they had to be sent out to be slaughtered for a second time for them to reach that point says it all.
I can see how the ‘crap game’ analogy works for the news and information marketplace, but not for the democratic marketplace.
Yes, the best-selling information in the democratic marketplace is that ‘the system’ ain’t broke, that all we need to solve our problems is ‘independence’ or a ‘redistribution of wealth’ or some other ‘reset’ within the total system of our productive relations. But you’re not obliged to buy this information. You’re still at liberty to shop around and buy whatever information you want, and you’re also at liberty (within certain limits that pertain to defamation, national security, and hate crime) to package and peddle whatever information you want to the best of your marketing abilities to those around you.
I’m always suspicious of losers who console themselves with the rationalisation that the game must be rigged against them. That game-strategy’s called ‘playing the victim’, and it’s self-fulfilling. Winners (e.g. the SNP in Scottish democratic marketplace) always play the market as they find it.
What you seem to be saying is you have to play the game to their rules as anything else makes you a loser. Do you think cheating isn’t possible or that we should ignore it to spare the feelings of those who were scammed?
Nearly, Tom. What I’d say is that, if you want to win the game, you have to play by the rules; otherwise, you’re not even in the game.
But that’s neither here nor there. If you (or anyone else) don’t like the information your getting from one source, I still don’t see why you (or anyone else) can’t just get information that better suits your (or their) tastes and interests from other of the myriad sources that are out there.
I think the real ‘problem’ is that you don’t like the information other people are getting? But is the ‘problem’ of where other people source their information really any of your business?
You’re giving your blessing to state controlled media.
But not all the media are controlled by the state; neither is all the information that’s curated and published through those media. Is Bella controlled by the state?
One of the biggest problems the state faces is the plethora of channels that spread what those who have control of its ‘levers’ consider to be ‘misinformation’ or ‘fake news’ or just plain ‘false’ or ‘politically incorrect’. It’s the same problem you have with channels you consider to be ‘off-message’ and whose output you’d rather people didn’t consume.
If all media was state controlled bar Bella would you consider that to be a straight deck? If not, then what percentage not state-controlled would you consider to be a straight deck? IMO, with all the wealth on the Tory side, we’re already dealing with a loaded deck.
But there’s no such thing as a straight deck/unmediated information, Tom, just a universe of loaded decks/mediated information. The trick is to seek out the deck/information that loaded/mediated in the ‘right’ way, in the way that best suits your tastes and purposes. If the information that mediated by the state doesn’t suit you, then you’re perfectly free to take your information from elsewhere, as is everyone else.
You remind me of auld Mary Whitehouse, who feigned ignorance of the knobs on her television set in her quest to regulate everyone’s viewing to her taste and purposes.
That doesn’t answer the question unless you’re saying that if Mary Whitehouse had succeeded censoring all media outlets bar Bella that would be fine.
Sorry, I’ll make the inference for you.
‘If all media was state controlled bar Bella would you consider that to be a straight deck?’
No, because there’s no such thing as a straight deck.
‘If not, then what percentage not state-controlled would you consider to be a straight deck?’
0%, because there’s no such thing as a straight deck.
“No, I’m saying that the conceit that the vast majority of folk are too blind, stupid, or corrupted by evil influence [e.g. of the ‘right-wing press’] to know what the righteous know is good for them is a self-deceptive rationalisation on the part of the righteous.”
You accept that the deck is always loaded but there’s no point in the deck being loaded if the casino isn’t going to gain from it. How does that sit with your comment above? How would you define a player who’s losing but thinks the casino is as honest as they come if not as blind, stupid or corrupted by evil influence? How would you define the player who realises the deck is loaded, withdraws from the game and tries to expose it? A conceited, self-deceptive, righteous twat? Would you say that about the protestors in Iran?
Anyone who continues to play in a casino in which s/he keeps on losing has only themselves to blame. They should cash in their chips and look for another casino.
Likewise anyone who continues to source their information from mediators whose editorials they don’t like should look to source her/his information elsewhere, from mediators whose editorials they do like. I still can’t see what’s stopping you or anyone else from doing this?
I’d call playing the victim card in order to continue nursing a grudge or a grievance ‘perverse’.
The protesters in Iran have spurned the state’s mediation of news and information and found other sources that speak better to their various social and political perspectives. Why can’t you do the same in what is arguably a much more liberal and open society?
Casino is an analogy. In this case there is only one “casino” in the UK, the Westminster one. What does “only have themselves to blame” mean? What is it you blame them for? Not being as intelligent as you to have sussed it?
The protestors in Iran are, rightfully, playing the victim card as you call it. Their problem stems from the fact that most Iranians only know the state’s side of it.
Then we’ve been talking at cross purposes, Tom. I thought we were flyting about ‘the media’, not the UK parliament and the conspiracy that allegedly controls it.
When someone’s ‘only got themselves to blame’, it usually means that there’s none onto whom s/he can offload that blame. If you can’t shop around for the information you consume, then that’s no one’s fault but your own.
The problem for the protesters in Iran isn’t that they can’t control what what other Iranians think or how they choose to live it’s rather the tyrannical nature of the political regime they live under, which won’t let them go their own variant ways into a social diversification that affiliates each not to ‘God’ but only to such kindred spirits as circumstances may offer.
We’re not at cross purposes. You’re defending the indefensible while portraying yourself as some kind of champion for the dim.
Well, I’m certainly defending the ability of everyone to source their information from wherever they like, along with capacity of each of us to determine for her/himself what’s ‘true’ and ‘false’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, etc. without the authority of ‘approved’ truth-tellers. Is that so indefensible?
If you’re saying the amount of money put out by the rich to keep the Tory vermin in power doesn’t affect the vote then yes, that’s indefensible. As is expecting the average punter to suss it all out.
The returns that private investors receive on their investments in political parties is another matter still, which has no bearing on my contention that there are myriad sources of news and information out there and that everyone is capable of choosing the news and information they want to hear from among those sources.
You seem to be suggesting a) that this plurality of news and information doesn’t exist and/or b) that those who don’t share your opinions do so because they’re somehow incapable of making what’s in your opinion the ‘right’ choice.
I humbly suggest that you’re damned by ‘the curst conceit o’ bein’ richt’.
It’s not about me, it’s about the population. The extra money for the NHS on the side of a bus, the Cambridge Analytica data, the soundbites (all echoed in the Tory press) and the extra (illegal) money spent all helped swing the Brexit referendum. The fact I knew it was all lies doesn’t change the result. The Guilford 4 spent 15 years in jail due to police propaganda (“When you go into court, you are putting your fate into the hands of people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.”).
I humbly suggest that you’ve dug yourself into a hole but cannot admit your mistake.
just under 75% of all national newspapers are controlled by Conservative-supporting billionaires.”
It’s actually quite difficult for most folk to avoid these if they want to read a newspaper. On saying that the sales of papers is collapsing so perhaps people are exercising a choice after all
Right John – Old Firm interviews and Taylor Swift feature coming up
Can’t wait.
As you know from previous articles mention Rangers or Celtic and you’ll have hundreds of responses and your readership will go thru the roof.
Us poor Hibs fans will just have to suffer for the greater good.
Taylor Swift/Harry Styles/Arianna Grande, Get those articles published and you’ll soon be living in a nice gaffe in Morningside!
Give the plebs what they want.
Controlling the media is becoming increasingly pointless when the target populations are finding it increasingly difficult to eat, heat their homes, pay their mortgages, fill their tanks, or pay their kids tuition fees.
Buying newspapers and powering tv sets will be pretty low on the priority scale for millions of us for the next year, at a minimum.
They are increasingly only talking to themselves, in the media environment. Their continual denial of realities is no longer carrying any weight, beyond their most fanatical base. Especially considering how mad they all sound. Deranged would be succinct.
Soon, even they will be reduced to their troll farms on social media to tout their tat. The cell phone will be the only functioning digital footprint of a growing population of folks over the next six to eight months.
People will not suffer gladly the excrement the talking heads are forever peddling as winter begins to bite, and want drives them to distraction.
The billionaires know this, but as always, when have they ever given a f**k about society. They became billionaires because they never cared for society in the first place.
Honorious, the last emperor of the Western Roman empire, never dreamed he’d be the last one, when he observed the barbarians at the gates of Rome. So with the billionaires.
Thanks Mike, good article.
Thanks!
Call me naive but recent events are leading me to believe/hope that the neo-liberal experiment, which started with Thatcher in the 1980s, reached its pinnacle with Brexit then imploded with Kwazi Kwarteng’s wet dream has finally hit the buffers. The British public are now surely aware that the markets will not tolerate libertarianism, at least not in this country. What succeeds in the USA, a country with vast wealth and resources, or in Singapore (touted as an economic model for the UK, ‘Singapore on Thames’) which is a very small country with virtually no economic hinterland, will not prevail in a large mature economy with little in the way of natural resources (excluding Scotland) like the UK.