by James Curran
Waterson found that journalists who contributed to the alt left sites were, in the main, not interested in cultivating relations with mainstream politicians, in marked contrast with their colleagues in the established media. He reports the complaints of Labour party communications staff who told him they found it easier dealing with the right-wing press than the alt-left websites – which no doubt did not reflect the experience of their predecessors when they were briefing the media against the party’s left, as described in earlier chapters. ‘I think an awful lot of political journalists let themselves get far too close to the politicians they are supposed to be holding to account,’ Tom Clark from Another Angry Voice told Waterson.41
All of which begs the question as to whether the affordances of digital media – news websites, alt-left blogs and the social media – have significantly undermined the power and influence of the right-wing press? Before seeking to answer this question, it is important to bear in mind that the alt left sites only began to make an impact during Corbyn’s 2015 campaign. Their rise was, to some extent, a reaction against the success of some of the right-wing sites. It is worth noting that, according to Feedspot, a site that runs a weekly monitor of the metrics of political blogs, of the top ten most popular blogspots in the UK, of those sites that have an obvious party bias four are Conservative-supporting and two are Labour-supporting42 . Two of the most prominent are the relatively mainstream Conservative Home (which claims an annual readership of three million)43 and the unashamedly ultra-right, but highly successful, site ‘Order-Order’ – better known, as Guido Fawkes, the nom de plume of its founder, Paul Staines. The Guido site – which can be seen as at the cutting edge of Britain’s alt-right – claims that in 2016 it had 42 million individual visits, compared with just under 20 million in 2010.44 Staines has also forged a fruitful relationship with the Sun: he has a weekly column, he feeds the paper a string of exclusives and his most recent news editor, Harry Cole, joined the Sun’s political team. Other right-wing sites have equally useful relations with sections of the right-wing press so that a symbiotic relationship has developed between the two. This is in marked contrast with the alt-left sites that see the Labour-supporting press – the Guardian and Mirror – more as enemies than allies.45
But to conclude it is necessary return to the question of whether the power of the right-wing press has, in 2018, diminished in comparison to where it stood in 1975. If the answer is yes, or even ‘possibly’, then the new digital news environment is only half the story. The other half is the remorseless decline in newspaper sales that we have witnessed over the past two decades, as the economics of the media industries have been radically disrupted by the economic power of the major online players – primarily Google and Facebook. The challenge has been twofold and unremitting. First, the online news sites and social media platforms supply extensive news and feature content apparently for free (apparently because the price paid for access to most new sites is the users’ personal data which becomes a valuable commodity in the hands of the online data consolidators – although this does not apply to the BBC which is one of the major online news providers). Second, because of this ostensibly free access, advertisers have found it far more cost-effective, in their search for their target audiences, to divert most of their advertising budgets to the online media. In 2017, internet-based advertising in the UK was £ 10.3billionn, up 13.6% on the previous year. By contrast, the spending on national print newspapers and magazines was just over £ 1billion, down 10% on the 2016 figure.46
This is not to suggest that the right-wing newspaper editors and proprietors have become toothless, penniless bulldogs. They still exercise great power through both their print and online publications if not as much through direct contact with their readers but, as referred to earlier in this chapter, through their influence on the news agendas of the BBC and other broadcasters. A YouGov poll after the 2017 election indicated that 32% of respondents said that it was newspapers that helped them choose who to vote for, compared to 16% who relied on social media sites. However, the poll also showed 51% of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds thought social media more influential, compared to just 28% who opted for newspapers; and 58% agreed that the ‘advent of the digital age has diminished the influence of newspapers’, but 48% said they still thought that newspapers have a ‘significant impact on the outcome’ of elections.47
The influence of newspapers is also, paradoxically, being assisted by the very online media that is causing them such problems and against which they inveigh daily. This assistance takes the form of two types of amplification of their news and views. First, because those news brands that have maintained free access online are still major media players – not just in the UK, but internationally as well. The Mail Online and the Guardian are in the world’s top ten news sites – the Mail with 53 million monthly visitors and the Guardian with 42 million (in both cases, their largest readership is in the UK) and both have substantial followers on Twitter and Facebook.48 The second way in which their content is amplified is via social media. Social media is now accessed by approximately two thirds of the over-sixteen population in the UK49 and, although they might not see direct posts from the mainstream media, much of the general discussion derives from items that have first seen the light of day in the national press.
So, to try to answer the question posed earlier: the right-wing press is still perhaps the most important factor in making the weather in which politics is conducted (on and offline). However, Labour, and its left in particular, which in the past found itself being deluged by Tory-supporting newspapers, now can gain some protection from the inclement political weather by sheltering under their digital umbrellas. Whether this will provide them with sufficient protection over the long-term, remains to be seen.
Notes
1. A. Pierce Daily Mail 26 July 2012.
2. P. Morgan Daily Mail3 May 2013.
3. P. Routledge ‘We got things wrong; profile; Margaret Hodge: the former Islington leader is finding it politic to eat humble pie’ Independent May 28 1995.
4. N. Kinnock People, 21 November 1999.
5. Based on Nexis search results.
6. According to YouGov in the 2017 election among first time voters (those aged eighteen and nineteen), Labour was forty-seven percentage points ahead. ‘How Britain Voted in the 2017 Election’. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election/.
7. Edelman Trust Barometer UK Findings. https://www.edelman.co.uk/magazine/posts/edelman-trust-barometer-2017-uk-findings/.
8. European Broadcasting Union (2017) ‘Trust in the Media’. https://www.ebu.ch/news/2017/05/trust-gap-between-traditional-and-new-media-widening-across-europe.
9. Headline in an article in the Daily Mail 4 November 2016 attacking the Supreme Court ruling that the final decision on Britain leaving the UK had to be taken by Parliament.
10. Daily Telegraph headline 4 November 2016.
11. Daily Express headline 15 May 2006.
12. P. Symon ‘Tribune group to discuss tactics after Wilson letter’ The Times 17 June 1975.
13. Over this period of time the only daily to have ceased publication altogether is the short-lived Today, whilst the News of the World was forced to close as a result of the phone hacking scandal and the Independent has become an online-only newspaper. But the daily I, originally an off-shoot of the Independent, has established itself as a tabloid-size ‘serious’ paper. There has also been the establishment of the Metro freesheet which now distributes close to a million copies a day; it is published by the Mail group but seeks to be non-political in its coverage.
14. Information in this section is based on a series of informal private conversations with Labour media advisers; in particular the late Veronica Crichton – who, after a career as a Labour Party press officer and as Ken Livingstone’s press officer, was a freelance party adviser and trainer.
15. Ibid.
16. Tunstall J. Westminster Lobby Correspon
dents: A Sociological Study of National Political Journalism (London: Routledge, 1970).
17. A. Sparrow Obscure Scribblers: A History of Parliamentary Journalism (London: Politicos, 2003).
18. See Gaber, I. ‘The slow death of the Westminster lobby: the impact of the MPs’ expenses scandal on political journalism’ British Politics 4(4), 2009 pp. 478–497 for a fuller account of the workings of the lobby.
19. A. Bevins ‘The crippling of the scribes’ British Journalism Review 1(2), 1990 pp. 13–17.
20. Ibid.
21. J. Straw ‘Democracy on the spike’ British Journalism Review 4(4), 1993 pp. 45–54.
22. For more on this topic see I. Gaber ‘The lobby in transition’ Media History 19(1), 2013 pp. 45–58.
23. Quoted in the Guardian ‘Robert Peston: BBC follows the Daily Mail’s lead too much’ Maggie Brown and Jason Deans 6 June 2014.
24. Katy Searle speaking on Radio 4 Feedback 16 September 2016.
25. News Consumption in the UK 2016 Ofcom June 2017. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/103570/news-consumption-uk-2016.pdf.
26. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017, (Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism). https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Digital%20News%20Report%202017%20web_0.pdf.
27. See ‘The social media campaign: mobilisation and persuasion’ D. Jackson and D. Lilleker in Political Communication in Britain: polling campaigning and media 2015 Wring, Mortimore and Atkinson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) pp. 293–314.
28. Ibid.
29. See R. Prince Comrade Corbyn: A Very Unlikely Coup: How Jeremy Corbyn Stormed to the Labour Leadership (London: Biteback Publishing, 2016).
30. Connock, A. ‘Social death: how did millennial liberals lose the history’s most digital elections?’ in Brexit, Trump and the Media Mair et al. (eds) (Bury St Edmonds: Abramis, 2017) p. 386.
31. T. Shipman Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem, (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2017).
32. Corcoran, L. (2017) How Labour and Jeremy Corbyn won the UK social media election, in three charts 13 June 2017 https://www.newswhip.com/2017/06/labour-won-uks-social-media-election/.
33. Ibid.
34. Connock op cit, p. 388.
35. Quoted in T. Ross and T. McTague, Betting the House: The Inside Story of the 2017 Election (London: Biteback Publishing, 2017).
36. See J. Waterson ‘The rise of the alt-left British media’ BuzzFeed 6 May 2017. https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/the-rise-of-the-alt-left?utm_term=.hsxBy80B2#.jce1lJA1X
37. See S. Bush ‘Even as the Tories stumble, Labour is drifting, rather than marching, towards power’ New Statesman 1 December 2017.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Connock op cit, p. 390.
41. Waterson op cit.
42. Top 25 UK Political Blogs & Websites on the Web Feedspot 16 December 2017. https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_political_blogs/.
43. Conservative Home – Advertise https://www.conservativehome.com/advertise.
44. Order-Order Review of 2016. https://order-order.com/2016/12/30/review-of-2016/.
45. Waterson op cit.
46. D. Ponsford ‘UK advertising market grew to record £ 21.4bn in 2016 as Google and Facebook took the lion’s share’ Press Gazette 25 April 2017. www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-advertising-market-grew-to-record-21-4bn-in-2016-as-google-and-facebook-took-the-lions-share/.
47. K. Schofield ‘Newspapers more influential than social media during general election – poll Politics Home 26 July 2017. https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/culture/news/87853/newspapers-more-influential-social-media-during-general-election-poll.
48. ‘Top 15 most popular news websites’ eBizMBA website July 2017. www.ebizmba.com/articles/news-websites
49. Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes Report Ofcom 2017. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/102755/adults-media-use-attitudes-2017.pdf.
Index
1960s 17–18; new urban left 9, 12–14
2017 General Election 232–3
Abbott, Diane 1, 2, 228
abolition of GLC (Greater London Council) 39, 119–20
Acheson, Dean 158
advertising campaigns, GLC (Greater London Council) 44–6
Afro-Caribbean migrants 7–8
agenda-setting 118
AIDS 83, 241
Akass, Bill 69, 71
Alexander, Andrew 190
‘alleged instability of, Livingstone, Ken’ 34–5
alt-left 262
Amiel, Barbara 176
Amory, Merle 8
Amos, Baroness 210
amplification 109
Annan, Noel 12
Another Angry Voice 262
anti-anti-racism 189–93
Anti-Nazi League 9
anti-racism 9–10, 158, 245–7
anti-Semitism 222
apologists for terror 3
Ashley, Jackie 139
Ashton, Jo 125
Ashton, Terry 130
Asian migrants 7–8
attitudes toward GLC abolition 44–6
audience responses 118
‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ 69–76
Baker, Kenneth 72, 82, 88, 93, 94, 135
Baldwin, Stanley 111
Baldwin, Tom 195
Bale, Tim 141, 171
Banks, Tony 9, 14, 131
Barker, Martin 186
Barnes, Rosie 58, 123
Baston, Lewis 154, 168
BBC 256, 259; Corbyn, Jeremy 229–32
Beacon Day Nursery 74
Bell, Stuart 150–1
Bellos, Linda 8, 133
Bellwin, Lord 99
Benn, Tony 26, 27, 145, 154, 253
Bevins, Anthony 258
Biffen, John 19
Billig, Michael 186
Birmingham Post 65; ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ 72
bizarre issues 183–4
Blair, Tony 140, 142, 156, 167, 168, 170, 171, 182, 197, 200, 212, 254, 256; anti-Labour bias 172–3; Clause Four 170–1; Iraq 177; Livingstone, Ken 174; racism 198–9; re-election of 178; relationship with Gordon Brown 178
Blatch, Baroness 108
blogs, left-wing news blogs 262
Blunkett, David 6, 183, 212
BMP (Boase, Massimi, and Pollitt) 45
Booker, Christopher 18
Bostock, Martin 71–2, 79n9
Boulton, Adam 229
Boyson, Rhodes 17, 93, 102
Brexit 247–50, 255
Brexitannia 248
Britain 183
British, as allegedly a racist word 205–12
British Social Attitudes Survey 246
Brixton, riots 27
broadcasting coverage, reporting on GLC (Greater London Council) 40–1
Brown, Gordon 140, 173, 178–9, 183, 254
Brown’s Britain 178
Bruinvels, Peter 65, 93, 95
Buckmaster, Viscount 85, 96, 97
Bulger, James 76, 116n71
Bullard, Brian 62
Burrell, Ian 209
Butler, David 151
Butt, Ronald 190
BuzzFeed News 233, 235, 262
by-elections 149
Callaghan, Jim 144
Cameron, David 224, 225, 227, 253
Campbell, Alastair 140, 171, 176, 177, 200, 254, 258
Campbell of Alloway, Lord 98
The Canary 262
Cannock, Alec 261
Cannon, Jim 67–9
Caribbean Exchange 66
caricatures 59, 60
Carlisle, Mark 192
Carmichael, Stokely 194
Carnwath, Robert 42
Carr, John 9
Carthcart, Brian 196, 216n38
Cashman, Michael 174
Castle, Barbara 26
Catholic Herald 102
Chandran, Raj 204
Channel Four 256
Chapple, Frank 34
cheap fares policy 42–3
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Child’s Play 3 76
Chittenden, Maurice 78–9n4
Clark, Tom 262
Clarke, Charles 147, 157
Clarke, Kenneth 29
Clarke, Nita 52
Clarke, Roger 41
clash of ideologies, new urban left 15–17
Clause 28 104–9
Clause Four 170–1
Clegg, Nick 225, 227
Climate Change Act 244
Clinton, President Bill 169
CNFL (Campaign for Normal Family Life) 85
Cocks, Michael 123
coded racism 205
Cohen, Stanley 226
Coin Street project 13
Cole, John 123, 129
Coleman, Terry 155
Colville, Robert 235
Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) 190
Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain 201
community campaigning, GLC (Greater London Council) 46–9
community charge 16
Condon, Sir Paul 195–6
conferences, Labour Party conferences 173
congestion charge 175–6, 244
Conservative Home 263
Conservative Party 54
convergence 109
Cool Britannia 199
Cooper, Davina 91–3
Cooper, Tim 68–9, 71
Corbyn, Jeremy 1, 2, 54, 106, 111, 131, 225, 228–32, 235–6, 254, 260, 262
County Hall 13, 39, 41
Coward, Ros 130
Cox, Baroness 83, 99, 113n3
CRE (Commission for Racial Equality) 190
Crewe, Ivor 162
Cultures, multiculturalism 182