\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>t the end of August the Sun put a picture of a pink poodle-shaped balloon on its front page, not to illustrate the last dog days of summer but the latest migrant hotel scandal, a story that has dominated the UK news agenda for weeks. In this case, the \u201cballoonacy\u201d of teaching hobbies to asylum seekers.<\/p>\n The silly season, in which the press seeks to entertain readers with lighter news during the summer, is cancelled this year.<\/p>\n Anti-migrant papers such as the Sun, the Mail, the Express and the Telegraph have, predictably, delivered most of the 1,571 stories mentioning \u201cmigrant\u201d and \u201chotel\u201d over the past month, but according to the media archive site Nexis, reporting about the issue has shifted in many other parts of the media. The plight of refugees is now consistently framed as a threat to \u201clocals\u201d, with even the broadsheet Times reporting a court case citing legal obligations under the inflammatory print headline: \u201cHotel migrant rights outweigh those of locals, ministers argue\u201d.<\/p>\n Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, tells me of toxic coverage with real-life consequences. \u201cThe mainstream media and political opinion is in a very different place than it was a year ago. Now there\u2019s an idea that everyone coming here is a potential sexual predator, a potential criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n Sections of the press have long delighted in stories of division and outrage rather than nuance and debate. But now \u2013 and this may be crucial \u2013 they have the added difficulty of having to compete with social media as to which is best placed to speak for \u201cthe people\u2019.<\/p>\n We see a symbiotic relationship \u2013 with politicians jumping on populist bandwagons and using the rightwing media to do so, who then flood their websites with the resulting outrage. This circular obscenity has seen shadow cabinet ministers such as Robert Jenrick playing to the media gallery outside migrant hotels this summer. Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch joined the unvirtuous circle with her claim that \u201cWomen are afraid to go for runs in the park as men lurk in bushes\u201d, echoing a Telegraph story last month quoting \u201cSophie\u201d, who lives near a migrant hotel and said she would never walk home alone at night as \u201cYou just don\u2019t know who is hiding in a bush.\u201d It\u2019s rabble rousing 360 degrees.<\/p>\n Standing in the middle of the circle now is Nigel Farage, whose policy of holding weekly press conferences during parliamentary recess has allowed him \u2013 with conspicuous help from media devotees \u2013 to dominate the headlines. This week, he was buoyed by journalists asking not whether his plan to return 600,000 migrants was the right thing to do, but rather if it is workable.<\/p>\n He then passed his torch to the Mail: \u201cFinally, a politician who gets it\u201d, said its front-page splash. \u201cOther political parties can snipe all they like,but Mr Farage is in tune with Middle Britain\u201d.<\/p>\n The Sun, in an editorial headlined \u201cplans for Nigel\u201d, agreed that Farage understood \u201cordinary Britons\u201d and understands their \u201ctotal despair\u201d. The Telegraph on its front page welcomed the fact that the Taliban would give Farage \u201ca deal\u201d.<\/p>\n Only the leftwing Mirror, in a front-page story by veteran journalist Paul Routledge, broke ranks with a headline: \u201cBritain is better than this \u2013 forget Farage, we need more decency and humanity\u201d.<\/p>\n Outside the circle, the Financial Times, shared a warning from the world\u2019s leading central bankers, including the Bank of England\u2019s Andrew Bailey, that the biggest economies faced an \u201cacute challenge\u201d of ageing populations and needed immigrants.<\/p>\n But that sort of thing struggles to break through. It is the circle that holds sway.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to be completely sure what is dictating the tone of the rightwing media coverage. Is it that the outlets and their proprietors want to see Farage in No 10 \u2013 on the basis that would be best for the country \u2013 or do they merely believe potential audiences want that and seek to reflect them? Any consideration of that question must also consider falling newspaper circulations. The race to be the voice of \u201cthe people\u201d may also be about survival.<\/p>\n It seems unlikely that the warmer tone of Rupert Murdoch and his News UK titles yet adds up to wholehearted support for Farage, but they are a sign that they are restless. And anger, grievance and radical plans do sell news.<\/p>\n What of the BBC? Can it be and remain an honest broker? Can it reflect the views of those living in the country\u2019s poorest neighbourhoods, who feel ignored by the media and politicians alike, and the concerns of refugees and those who support them? It’s a debate mired in political opportunism and submerged in mendacity, so that’s a big ask of the BBC, but it must deliver.<\/p>\n Journalism is often described as the \u201cfirst draft of history\u201d, but can anyone, looking at today\u2019s newsstands, reviewing today\u2019s output, really think that history will be anything but damning?<\/p>\n First, do no harm. Punch up, not down. Shed more light than heat. These sentiments, in different ways, used to mean something in our media. They still could. They still should. And if they did, perhaps migration \u2013 its effect on people, its effect on our country and its effect on our communities \u2013 would get the debate it deserves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the end of August the Sun put a picture of a pink poodle-shaped balloon on its front page, not to illustrate the last dog days of summer but the latest migrant hotel scandal, a story that has dominated the UK news agenda for weeks. In this case, the \u201cballoonacy\u201d of teaching hobbies to asylum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[11187,638,6525,5428,11188,11186,3034,4316,9768,6238],"class_list":{"0":"post-18337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-awful","9":"tag-debate","10":"tag-desperate","11":"tag-jane","12":"tag-martinson","13":"tag-opportunist","14":"tag-politicians","15":"tag-press","16":"tag-refugees","17":"tag-vicious"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}