Politicians frequently complain about the coverage the media gives to politics (not enough of it, too superficial, too negative etc.) But what does the public make of it all?
The Committee on Standards in Public Life this week published their third report into public attitudes towards standards of conduct in public life, which included this conclusion based on their research:
People are generally positive about the way in which the media covers political news, with the exception that they are widely critical of the tabloid press, which they see as setting out to tarnish the names of politicians, with little regard for the truth …
It is interesting to note in this context that tabloid only readers are not quick to defend the way in which their own newspapers cover politics. Indeed, their confidence in the veracity and political utility of their newspapers is not much greater than the negative attitude towards tabloids held by broadsheet readers
I was slightly surprised at how positive the public views were overall, and it’s interesting to ponder whether – if people view tabloids as setting out to criticise politicians with little regard for the truth – that means they largely discount negative stories they do read in the tabloids, and so those stories may often not have that much impact.
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8 Comments
Must try harder.
Hmm, I think this might be an instance of the general / specific divide.
You know: “All politicians are parasite scum.” / “I met my MP once, seemed a nice, honest bloke.”
Equally, I suspect that there is such a disconnection of thought going on with reading papers.
“The tabloids are full of bollocks, they make half of it up.” / “Have you seen this?! It’s absolutely disgusting what these people are saying…”
“they are widely critical of the tabloid press, which they see as setting out to tarnish the names of politicians, with little regard for the truth”
The question is, can the wider public distinguish cases where the tabloid press is just tarnishing the names of politicians, with little regard for the truth, from cases where it is actually telling the truth?
I wonder whether Hazel Blears will be making a public comment…
Tabloid readers don’t like to think of themselves as uneducated fools. They would much rather see themselves as decent intelligent folk who just read the tabloids for a laugh or to get a quick scan of the news. So when a researcher comes along, a tabloid reader will often want to give a response that says, in effect, “I may happen to read the Sun, but as a person, I’m a cut above your average Sun reader.”
The reality is that people who read tabloids, and are bombarded with daily propaganda, end up being hugely influenced by it. Mail readers are the most fearful of being “swamped” by immigrants, for example. One Focus, every now and then, has to fight against a tide of that stuff!
What Andy Hinton said.
I feel the negative coverage of politicians in the media has contributed a lot to democratic politics failing due to lack of grassroots membership and a cynicism which means politicians are unable to take brave steps or tell uncomfortable truths or face up to non-elected powers.
I know when I was a councillor how dispiriting it was, when canvassing my own ward, to have so many doors slammed in my face and so many people come at me with those old lines “you’re only in it for yourself”, when I had sacrificed a great deal of my time, money, energy and career opportunities to take on that role for these people whose welfare I cared passionately about. This in a ward with a regular Focus held reasonably comfortably over several elections. It wasn’t trhat those who gave me such a negative response were voting for the other lot – they weren’t voting at all because we were all “politicians” thus nasty people.
I read an academic paper once (but sadly, didn’t keep the URL) which set out to examine how tabloid coverage affects the outcome of election campaigns, and found that basically, it doesn’t, the Sun’s self-congratulatory crowing notwithstanding. This seems to be in line with that finding.