Did the mass media help stagnate the economy? If so, it seem some outlets are getting what they deserve.

Wow – GB News has lost £105 million since it opened in 2021. Some might suggest this is because it is a propaganda outlet, rather than a news channel.

One such person might be the eminent economist, Professor Simon Wren-Lewis who, in his latest Mainly Macro column, suggests that the mainstream media have contributed to economic stagnation by spreading misinformation.

In particular, he refers to the permanent harm done to the UK economy by Brexit:

Most of the print media effectively ignored them, and pushed Brexit with as much propaganda as they could. The broadcast media ‘balanced’ the expert advice with counter claims from the tiny number of economists that wanted to push Brexit, giving the impression to all but the most savvy voters that expert opinion was divided. I have little doubt that with a media more committed to telling the truth Brexit would never have happened.

As I have said before, politicians find it hard to increase growth but can quite easily reduce it, and Brexit is a clear example of that. That is particularly true if the media actively promotes politicians likely to damage growth. That happened with Brexit, but the media environment has not significantly changed since then. If anything, right wing newspapers have become even more extreme, and the BBC still promotes ‘balance’ over knowledge.

Opinion polls today show the consequences of that. Reform, the party led and entirely controlled by Nigel Farage, is often ahead of the Conservatives and sometimes ahead of Labour. Farage made his name leading another party whose chief purpose was to advocate for Brexit. With Johnson out of the picture, Farage is effectively Mr. Brexit in the UK right now. So why is a politician who advocated for such a disastrous policy doing so well?

One response is to say voters are stupid, but that is not my view. The print media that gave us Brexit still fill their pages with propaganda designed to promote Farage and like-minded politicians, and will of course never admit how they lied to achieve Brexit. In the broadcast media, every interview with Farage should start and end by asking him why he made such a huge mistake in championing Brexit, and how can voters trust someone with such poor judgement. [3] After all, if any other politician had cost the average voter 4% of their income this would be the media’s approach. But it hardly ever happens with Farage.

Explaining the continuing popularity of Farage as ‘just about immigration’ hardly absolves the UK media. They as much as politicians are ultimately responsible for concealing basic truths about immigration from voters. The right wing press remorselessly pushes anti-immigration propaganda, and the broadcast media hardly ever asks about the cost of reducing immigration, or why refugees are forced to cross the channel in small boats. It never asks why most voters want lower immigration but at the same time want more overseas workers for most occupations.

Which is why I think it is possible for Farage to top some opinion polls despite being responsible for a large part of current UK stagnation and poor UK living standards.

Yes, Nigel Farage – who has been very well-supported by that pillar of the right-wing Establishment, GB News.

And how has that turned out for that media channel? Here‘s Another Angry Voice:

The far-right propaganda outlet GB News lost another £33 million in the 2023-34 financial year, raising the total losses to an extraordinary £105 million since it was founded in 2021.

Latest accounts show that [it] only made £15.8 million in revenues against operating costs over three times as high.

Poetic justice? But here are a few sobering thoughts:

The owners of GB News have incredibly deep pockets to bankroll their efforts to debase and destabilise UK politics.

GB News has been spending more than £20 million per year on salaries, which is way more than it makes in revenues!

This largesse sends a clear message to aspiring journalists that there’s plenty of cash to be made, as long as you’re willing to contribute to the debasement of British political discourse by peddling extreme-right hate, misinformation, and conspiracy theories.

Once journalists have been radicalised by GB News, they often make their way into senior positions at conventional media organisations like the BBC.

Bang goes the BBC’s pretence at balance, then.

So the far-right propaganda-monkeys have been happy to spaff huge amounts of cash up the wall in order to influence politics and put their people in high places in other media organisations. Presumably they make their big money from the changes they have achieved. They have created a country of hot air and fantasy.

But where can UK citizens go to find out what they actually need to know?

Immodest as it may seem, Yr Obdt Srvt would heartily recomment Mainly Macro, Another Angry Voice and… oh yes: Vox Political.

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