My wife is always complaining to me about how the media are always attacking the Conservative party… I think, given that both sides are complaining about being attacked, the media probably aren't actually that biased overall.
I once felt that this was true in the UK, particularly around the BBC. To some extent, there is still a bit of truth in it. But I don't think it would be possible to hold that view honestly any more after the current election campaign, and to do so would require willingly turning a blind eye to some particularly egregious behaviour.
It's not as simple as a blatant "bias", either. The UK's tabloid press has always been pretty sketchy in this regard, and the decline of the Telegraph, which is now a blatant organ of the Conservative party, is astonishing. The current thing that's happening is more complex – there's a weird mix of credulous establishmentarianism and an inflexible media culture that's making it hard to deal with the rapid change in the methods by which information is spread. I have no idea how to deal with this, but it's actually sort of frightening to watch how much it's deteriorated in even the past few weeks.
I will 100% agree with you that there has been a deterioration in the quality of media reporting on politics over the last few years.
However, I will argue that this is partly/mostly because the main thing the political parties are feeding the media is negative messages. I'd like to see some constructive messages instead.
Even the political leaflets put into my letterbox are giving negative messages - "Anything but Boris", "I am the only candidate who can get rid of the Tories", "A vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for Corbyn", "Don't let Labour destroy our region", etc. What I wanted to see was "We recognise this particular problem (for example, underfunded NHS), and we think the way to solve it is to take this particular action. We know this will have this other knock-on effect, but we believe this is the best choice."
The other thing I see in the political leaflets is of course empty promises. I think all of the parties have promised to save the NHS. None of them really say how, or why their method is better than the other parties' methods.
It's just a load of mudslinging at this point. I'd seriously vote for a candidate who just said "You know, our country is pretty nicely tuned at the moment. We could spend a bit more on this, or a bit less, depending on your political philosophy. But I plan to stop changing everything all the time." As it is, I might be spoiling my ballot. I'm in a safe seat anyway.
I once felt that this was true in the UK, particularly around the BBC. To some extent, there is still a bit of truth in it. But I don't think it would be possible to hold that view honestly any more after the current election campaign, and to do so would require willingly turning a blind eye to some particularly egregious behaviour.
It's not as simple as a blatant "bias", either. The UK's tabloid press has always been pretty sketchy in this regard, and the decline of the Telegraph, which is now a blatant organ of the Conservative party, is astonishing. The current thing that's happening is more complex – there's a weird mix of credulous establishmentarianism and an inflexible media culture that's making it hard to deal with the rapid change in the methods by which information is spread. I have no idea how to deal with this, but it's actually sort of frightening to watch how much it's deteriorated in even the past few weeks.