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> media manipulation This is intruiging to me. From where I am sitting in the beautiful English sunshine, the media seems very bullish and pro-brexit! The Da

> media manipulation This is intruiging to me. From where I am sitting in the beautiful English sunshine, the media seems very bullish and pro-brexit! The Daily Mail, Express and Telegrapgh are openly pro-brexit, branding those trying to stop it as 'traitors'. The Murdoch press (Times and Sun) is less overt, but Murdoch is well known to be pro-brexit. This leaves The Guardian, which is well read on the internet because it is free but less so on paper. Also the Mirror is apparently more balanced, but lightweight. The BBC seem very sheepish after open threats from Ian Duncan Smith. I think the domestic press have been very, very easy on the government and the official opposition who are not opposing Brexit. I wonder if the international press are behaving differently? Disclosure: I do believe the Brexit team are clowns. I believe that most people in Britain had no interest in the EU either way until the popular press handed them an opinion. Remember the Google.co.uk trending searches for the day after the referendum included 'what is the EU'

mhneu 8y ago
This is exactly my read of the UK press. Without the BBC playing a strong independent role (after the tory campaign to affect it), there is very little independent press able to drive a fair discussion. The Guardian has only a small impact on the overall public debate. (ps does the Economist have much influence in your view?)
- jimnotgym 8y ago
  Re: Economist. Certainly a fine read, and very popular amongst us finance folks. It's national impact is lost in the roundings compared to the Daily Mail with their 'crush the saboteurs' theme IMHO.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    Exploitation of media (and thus public opinion) by the wealthy is going to be the major issue we in the West have to deal with in the next decade, I believe. (for-profit news, and social media, and the Piketty wealthy-desire-to-influence politics have led us to a unique and dangerous place in 2018.)
    - sanderjd 8y ago
      Honest question (I have concerns along the same lines you do): why is this uniquely problematic now? My understanding is that journalism with a point of view has historically been more the rule than the exception.
      - mhneu 8y ago
        Lag. In the 50-70s we all grew to believe media had no agenda. Then in the US conservative billionaires figured out they could advocate for cutting their own taxes by building propaganda media (Fox, right wing radio, etc) Our media and society have not yet caught up. Media doesn’t know how to deal with open lies. And there is no left wing response to propaganda from Fox and Limbaugh. I think we’ll get there. But it will take some time.
repolfx 8y ago
You aren't reading much press in the UK then. Openly anti-Brexit: the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, Sky News, BBC News (e.g. their famous "despite brexit" spin on every good news story). The UK is really the only country in Europe that has a press that's willing to attack the EU and (uselessly) try to hold it to account. I've always been surprised when reading German news how flimsy so much of their broadsheet press really is. Die Zeit's "interview" with Farage being a good example of the low quality that passes for highbrow media there. Remember the Google.co.uk trending searches for the day after the referendum included 'what is the EU' You're doing what so many EU fans do, you're repeating myths whilst believing you're above believing myths. The Google graphs that people cited at that time didn't show any volume, but volume data was available via their ad planner tool. What that showed is that volume for that query is absolutely minimal, even a huge spike would still amount to virtually nobody typing in such a query. Almost certainly, given the wordy phrasing, those queries were coming from children via speech recognition. https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman/2016/06/28/brexit-and-the-two-faces-of-google-adwords-data/#49ac14d82ef6 https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman/2016/06/28/brexit... But sure, you go on and tell yourself that most people were simply repeating things they read in the press.
- cirrus-clouds 8y ago
  > You aren't reading much press in the UK then. Neither are you. Researchers at Loughborough University analysed Brexit coverage on TV and in the press in the lead up to the referendum. They found that coverage, when weighted by circulation, was 80% in favour of Brexit and 20% against. Source: https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-referendum/uk-news-coverage-2016-eu-referendum-report-5-6-may-22-june-2016/ https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-referendum/uk-news-coverage...
  - repolfx 8y ago
    I wasn't making any claims about weighting by circulation, only refuting the point that the media is very pro Brexit. In reality it's split about 50/50. But again, trying to go from "what the media supports" to "what people voted for" is a correlation/causation fallacy. There are plenty of anti-Brexit papers to read. If people largely choose not to, that probably implies they don't think those papers are very good.
blattimwind 8y ago
Honestly? Around here both Brexit and the British government+parliament is mostly viewed as a plain joke at this point. Heck, even people who I never heard utter a single peep regarding politics are making "Brexit Logic" jokes now.

mhneu 8y ago

This is exactly my read of the UK press. Without the BBC playing a strong independent role (after the tory campaign to affect it), there is very little independent press able to drive a fair discussion. The Guardian has only a small impact on the overall public debate. (ps does the Economist have much influence in your view?)

jimnotgym 8y ago
Re: Economist. Certainly a fine read, and very popular amongst us finance folks. It's national impact is lost in the roundings compared to the Daily Mail with their 'crush the saboteurs' theme IMHO.
- mhneu 8y ago
  Exploitation of media (and thus public opinion) by the wealthy is going to be the major issue we in the West have to deal with in the next decade, I believe. (for-profit news, and social media, and the Piketty wealthy-desire-to-influence politics have led us to a unique and dangerous place in 2018.)
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    Honest question (I have concerns along the same lines you do): why is this uniquely problematic now? My understanding is that journalism with a point of view has historically been more the rule than the exception.
    - mhneu 8y ago
      Lag. In the 50-70s we all grew to believe media had no agenda. Then in the US conservative billionaires figured out they could advocate for cutting their own taxes by building propaganda media (Fox, right wing radio, etc) Our media and society have not yet caught up. Media doesn’t know how to deal with open lies. And there is no left wing response to propaganda from Fox and Limbaugh. I think we’ll get there. But it will take some time.

repolfx 8y ago

You aren't reading much press in the UK then. Openly anti-Brexit: the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, Sky News, BBC News (e.g. their famous "despite brexit" spin on every good news story). The UK is really the only country in Europe that has a press that's willing to attack the EU and (uselessly) try to hold it to account. I've always been surprised when reading German news how flimsy so much of their broadsheet press really is. Die Zeit's "interview" with Farage being a good example of the low quality that passes for highbrow media there. Remember the Google.co.uk trending searches for the day after the referendum included 'what is the EU' You're doing what so many EU fans do, you're repeating myths whilst believing you're above believing myths. The Google graphs that people cited at that time didn't show any volume, but volume data was available via their ad planner tool. What that showed is that volume for that query is absolutely minimal, even a huge spike would still amount to virtually nobody typing in such a query. Almost certainly, given the wordy phrasing, those queries were coming from children via speech recognition. https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman/2016/06/28/brexit-and-the-two-faces-of-google-adwords-data/#49ac14d82ef6 https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseackerman/2016/06/28/brexit... But sure, you go on and tell yourself that most people were simply repeating things they read in the press.

cirrus-clouds 8y ago
> You aren't reading much press in the UK then. Neither are you. Researchers at Loughborough University analysed Brexit coverage on TV and in the press in the lead up to the referendum. They found that coverage, when weighted by circulation, was 80% in favour of Brexit and 20% against. Source: https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-referendum/uk-news-coverage-2016-eu-referendum-report-5-6-may-22-june-2016/ https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/crcc/eu-referendum/uk-news-coverage...
- repolfx 8y ago
  I wasn't making any claims about weighting by circulation, only refuting the point that the media is very pro Brexit. In reality it's split about 50/50. But again, trying to go from "what the media supports" to "what people voted for" is a correlation/causation fallacy. There are plenty of anti-Brexit papers to read. If people largely choose not to, that probably implies they don't think those papers are very good.

blattimwind 8y ago

Honestly? Around here both Brexit and the British government+parliament is mostly viewed as a plain joke at this point. Heck, even people who I never heard utter a single peep regarding politics are making "Brexit Logic" jokes now.