British British Journalism Journalism British @TheBJReview 2016 September Review 3 www.bjr.org.uk @TheBJReview Review Journalism Review www.bjr.org.uk Volume 27 Number 27 Number Volume Volume 27 Number 27 Number Volume The factor 3 x September 2016 September Reporting politics ■ Julia Langdon ■ James Hanning ■ Jemima Kiss http://bjr.sagepub.com British Journalism Review www.bjr.org.uk @TheBJReview VOL. 27 NO. 3 SEPTEMBER 2016 Editor Kim Fletcher editorial board The views expressed are those of Chairman Bill Hagerty (Editorial board) the author(s) concerned and do not Chairman Stephen Claypole (Management) necessarily reflect those of the editor or Steven Barnett the editorial board. Sir Geoffrey Bindman Jessica Carsen The British Journalism Review is published four times a year in Chris Elliott March, June, September and Ivor Gaber December for bjr Publishing Ltd Margaret Hill by sage Publications Ltd (London, Joy Johnson Thousand Oaks, CA, New Delhi, Julia Langdon Singapore, Washington, DC and Michael Leapman Melbourne). Robin Lustig Brenda Maddox subscriptions (4 issues) Sue Matthias Combined institution rate Julian Petley (print + electronic) uk: £440; us: $814 Sarah Whitehead Brian Winston Anthony Delano (France) Electronic-only and print-only subscriptions Roy Greenslade (Ireland) are available for institutions at a discounted rate. Note: VAT may be applicable at the Jemima Kiss (California) appropriate local rate. Treasurer Carolyn Cluskey Visit sagepublishing.com for more details including individual rates, single-copy rates Design consultant Brian Bass and pay per view. 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Further details are available Tara Srinivasan, Liz Vercoe from SAGE Publications Ltd, 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road, London EC1Y 1SP, UK, tel. +44 (0)20 7324 8500, email subscriptions@ sagepub.co.uk, and in North America, SAGE Printer Page Bros Publications Inc, PO Box 5096, Thousand Oaks, Norwich uk CA 91320, USA. ©bjr publishing ltd 2016 ISSN (printed version) 0956-4748 ISSN (online version) 1741-2668 @TheBJReview Contents Editorial A question of trust 3 Not finally Julia Langdon dissects referendum coverage 5 Paul Donovan examines migrants and refugees 9 Michael White asks for an apology 11 James Hanning looks at the May way 14 Tom Leonard watches a US media love in 16 What the papers said: a referendum special 19 Jemima Kiss Facebook plans world domination 24 Matt Rogerson The threat to our liberties 29 Steven Barnett Why the BBC is still in danger 37 Colin Freeman The death of the foreign correspondent 43 Henry Sands A dirty election in Africa 48 Paul Lashmar Why it is good to hoard 53 Tim Luckhurst When mighty Yorkshire roared 59 book reviews: Jon Swain explains why journalists seek danger 67 Maggie Brown seeks protection for Channel 4 69 Paul Routledge admires a king of spin 71 Isabella Cipirska hones her research skills 73 Cal McCrystal pays tribute to a great story-teller 75 Michael Leapman recalls an early John Osborne 78 ● The Drum Award 35 Ten years ago The way we were 36 Quotes of the Quarter 47 Twitterwatch 66 The Wheeler Award 80 editorial British Journalism Review Te l l t h e t r ut h Newspaper editors tend to campaign only on issues they believe they can win, so let us admire the boldness of those who came out so eagerly for Brexit. They were clearly as surprised as the government by the result – and just as clueless about next steps. But in an age when social media dominate, we should not begrudge old hands an opportunity to claim they’ve still got it: “So much for the waning power of the print media,” said The Sun editor, Tony Gallagher. Was this really a newsprint triumph? Not if we examine the figures. Britain’s daily newspapers that claim that their hard copies are seen by some 19 million readers each day. The titles that campaigned to leave reach 10 million of those, not many more than the rivals that took a neutral or remain position. Some 33.5 million UK citizens turned out, 17.4 million of whom voted to leave, 16.1 million to remain. So newspapers almost balanced each other out and each side reached, at best, less than a third of those who voted. On that basis, we do not even have to address that endlessly debated question: do papers lead or follow their readers? Are all those elderly voters, accused by remainers of destroying the future for the young, reading their papers to be told what to think, or to find support for their views? What is not in doubt is that newspapers influenced the tone of the debate, spurring politicians to an increasingly toxic battle. In that environment, broadcasters worked hard to demonstrate “balance”. Several commentators observed that they gave equal airtime to economists from each side, though in the world outside the studio, economic “experts” and institutions that favoured remain far outnumbered leavers. So the papers stirred things up? Isn’t that a good thing these days, when we are told there is not enough interest in politics? They can hardly be accused of self-interest, for the received wisdom – if any of that remains in politics or economics – is that the UK advertising market will plunge 3 ©Fletcher; DOI: 10.1177/0956474816668787; [2016/9] 27:3; 3-4; http://bjr.sagepub.com further, hastening the demise of the newspaper industry. Nor do we buy the idea this was malign work by proprietors: Rupert Murdoch’s Sun and Times took different sides, as did Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Rather, we might admit that every true journalistic heart beat a little for Brexit, on the basis it would make for a more exciting story. News journalists are conditioned to wish for the extraordinary, even if it threatens their own destruction. Who cares whether this is good for the country, if it is good for sales? We like comedy too, and it is a hilarious proposition that our editors, supported by salaries many times greater than those of their readers and ferried around the capital by chauffeurs, speak for the ordinary, forgotten folk of the United Kingdom. But there is a more serious charge, which is that our papers crossed a line this summer, subverting the language of campaign into crude propaganda. Traditional distinctions between news and comment that have been blurring for some time largely disappeared in the build-up to the referendum. Several September 2016 September titles corrected headlines to do with immigration and crime after complaints from the pro-Europe group InFact. The Daily Mail admitted that the “migrants” it pictured across its front page under the headline “We’re from vol.27 no.3 vol.27 Europe – let us in” were in fact from the Middle East; the press regulator Ipso said The Sun’s headline “Queen backs Brexit” was significantly misleading (though it rejected the InFact claim that The Daily Telegraph had inaccurately reported the implications for terrorism of open borders). This really matters, for any paper that fails to build on foundations of fact ultimately loses its authority. In the past decade, with so many new British Journalism Review sources of information rising to challenge our publishers, those who believe in the trade of journalism have clung to a reassuring thought: with so much stuff flying around the internet, we turn to material that is written with objectivity, subjected to checking, by sources we can trust. Our newspapers need to remember that. If they lose those boundaries, play fast and loose with facts, abandon trust, they are fighting a war without the weapons that might save them. KF 4 @TheBJReview @TheBJReview Not finally… Subjective views on matters journalistic It’s the media, stupid It should have been obvious to What he got so tragically wrong, everyone, not least the last prime however, not least in terms of his own minister, that the influence of the future, was his apparent belief that media was going to be crucial to the the power of the press in its widest outcome of his reckless decision to sense would operate for his benefit and promise a referendum on Europe. It in the interest of the official case to was always clear that the press was maintain the status quo, and thus the going to have a big part to play and, UK’s continuing role in Europe. He indeed, David Cameron only gave the just didn’t see how the world in which undertaking to offer a vote because he we work has changed. Nor did he was driven to it by the public fuss appreciate how the concerted personal about Europe, which has itself been commitment of Messrs Barclay, widely exacerbated by the press for Murdoch, Desmond and Dacre to years. frustrate his primary purpose would The antipathy to the EU within rebound upon him. Well, as they say in his own party and an understandable Scotland, “he kens noo”. anxiety about the impact of Ukip on Nobody saw, or could have the Conservative vote has been a story predicted, the extraordinary sequence for sections of the media for years, not of political events that were to follow least because of those influential Cameron’s resignation as prime proprietors and editors – you know minister: the ferment in the who they are – who share the doubts Conservative Party, the suicidal chaos about the supposed advantages of of the Labour Party and the apparent membership and simultaneously implosion of Ukip. There was no recognise the populist appeal of government, there was no meaningful publicising such views. By opposition, the economy was acknowledging that problem so threatened with freefall and there was publicly in holding out the prospect a full-scale constitutional crisis.