The British media support the Tory government – when they should be holding it to account
[Image: Before It’s News.]
There has been at least one other academic study in the last few years, showing that the media – and especially the BBC – predominantly support the Conservative Party in their news coverage.
Now, Loughborough University has analysed newspaper coverage of political parties during the first week of last year’s general election campaign.
It found that the Labour Party was overwhelmingly targeted with negative coverage, while the Tories were showered with praise.
What is your average, non-political person-on-the-street supposed to think?
Look at the state of this:
The study also showed that the most positive coverage of the Tories came from the highest circulation newspapers, with journalists at The Sun and the Daily Mail relied upon to write deferential, pro-government stories.
“The unweighted results show that only the Conservative Party received more positive than negative coverage across all newspapers,” the academics said in a summary of their research.
“In contrast, Labour had a substantial deficit of positive to negative news reports in the first formal week of the campaign.”
To give you an idea of the scale of the imbalance: the study weighted each news item on whether it contained a negative or positive implication for each party, scoring either -1 or +1 respectively, while balanced news items produced a 0.
The result:+4 for the Conservatives, and -91 for Labour.
At a time when the law demands impartial coverage.
The UK badly needs independent news coverage – or at least a restoration of the balance.
Fortunately, there are moves in that direction – such as the new Facebook page This is NOT the Corporate News.
But then, This Writer would say that – This Site is a contributor to that page. Look it up!
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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