The media, and my issue with it

Recently I wrote an article for my school newspaper on the media and its portrayal of Brexit. This wasn't exactly news and it wasn't exactly impartial, but it raised an important point. So I thought I'd just regurgitate it here for you now, so that you too can be annoyed at how rubbish British media is. Be prepared for some opinions.

Brexit and the Media - by Ben Morgan

When it came to the Referendum the media was the most diverse, confusing and frankly unhelpful it has been in decades. There were some extremely xenophobic sentiments throughout the tabloids in contrast to some fanatical libertarian ideals online, which culminated in what resembled something more akin to a playground fight than a critical national debate about the future of our country. This resulted in serious tensions not only in Westminster, but also between friendships, families and colleagues. The country was split and, unfortunately, since the Referendum this division has only intensified to encompass far more members of society. Perhaps the most prevalent problem has been the issue of race. Almost half of the London embassies for the 27 EU member states reported a rise in incidents of xenophobic abuse in 12 weeks after the EU referendum. In the first week after the Referendum result there were, reportedly, three cases of hate crimes per hour. The Polish consular service in London, Manchester and Edinburgh has logged 31 incidents of reported hate crime since 23 June. This points to a massive problem that Britain faces. Not only are we split on the issues of the European Union, but there is also a serious issue of anti-immigrant sentiment across the country which is undoubtedly causing serious concern. In the days after the Brexit vote, one Polish family in Plymouth felt the force of this continuing spike in hate crimes across the country. An arson attack destroyed a shed at their home in Efford and the perpetrators left a note which read “Go back to your country next be [sic] your family.” A statement from Jon Burnett, a researcher at the Institute of Race Relations, offers an insight into why this may be the case: “The upsurge in attacks against eastern Europeans should come as no surprise, given the way that they have been portrayed repeatedly as scroungers, cheats and, ultimately, threats. This depiction, which intensified in the build-up to the referendum, of course predated it. The hate crimes are a product of a politically constructed climate which has been years in the making.”

Jon Burnett’s remarks put into question the media’s response to Brexit. An old proverb says “don’t shoot the messenger” yet in the case of the EU Referendum we can make exceptions. From all sides of the media we were pummeled with opinions. The tabloids, who mainly supported leave, were giving out headlines such as “beLEAVE in Britain” from the Sun “Your country needs you to vote leave” from the Daily Express and of course there was the scandalous “QUEEN BACKS BREXIT!” again from the Sun. From other sources we had the BBC seemingly putting all the focus on Farage’s antics thus inadvertently giving him a platform, ITV news giving us the title sequence to “Apocalypse Now” and then there was the outpouring of pro-EU views on young people’s social media which I’m sure flooded your newsfeeds in the weeks before the Referendum. But did this affect the election result? The answer is yes. Unquestionably yes.

In a poll after the EU Referendum of 5,000 leave voters, over 30% said they didn’t actually know what they were really voting for. 26% of those people said they would have changed their minds. In the run up to the referendum, British media failed spectacularly. Most of Britain’s national press dabbled in little more than opinions, half-truths, and outright lies. It was in its most basic form a propaganda campaign in which facts and analysis were sacrificed in the name of driven objectives to give the demographic what they were asking for. This can be plainly seen in an interview done by “Inforrm’s Blog” (a blog attacking the responsibilities of the media) where a woman said she voted Leave because she was convinced that waves of immigrants would soon overwhelm British communities, take their jobs, and undermine their way of life. This undoubtedly comes from the fantastical articles from the Sun about a “Lawless Britain” and the “Halal Secret of Pizza Express” where immigrants are portrayed unbelievably negatively. Through newspapers publishing these sensationalist views it is no wonder that the Leave campaign did so well and eventually won.. Yet this is only the influence of the newspapers. What about the internet?

The Brexit portrayed on the internet differs dramatically from newspapers. On Facebook in particular there was a definite outpouring of heartfelt pleas to vote remain from the young people of Britain and internet users also had access to a wider range of information than the tabloid newspaper readers simply by being able to google it. But this does raise the question of whether the influence of the media did vary over an age gap. In a survey done by the Guardian about what influenced people to vote, 29% of over 65s, a key demographic for the leave campaign, declared newspapers to be their most important information source against only 16% of 18-24s, a predominately remain demographic. Only 8% of over 65s attached much weight to social media, against 33% of young voters. There’s an age gap, an education gap and, perhaps, an incomprehension gap. More shockingly, a quarter of over 65s claimed the Leave campaign itself was their most important source of information showing that this age group were basing their decision on biased newspapers and a campaign that forged its own statistics such as the 350 million pounds promised to the NHS (this is not to say that the remain campaign was any better, that is, such as their claim that 3 million jobs tied to the EU would be lost). Brexit happened because demographics were misled. Whilst the young voters had access to a wide variety of information on the internet, elderly voters had to rely on biased, opinionated and false information from both campaigns and the tabloid newspapers. The media influenced the Brexit vote and this is an issue that should be addressed when it comes to the next big decision that this country has to make. The impartiality of the media is crucial in generating an unbiased and accurate vote that is a true representation of what the country wants, rather than an agenda spread through inaccurate sources. No matter which camp you were from, we can all agree that we were deceived by our media.