Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

Your interpretation is correct.

The interesting things in the article to me are (a) how the online versions of what were printed press seem to be less extreme than the printed ones (b) how little difference there is in the numbers of people citing "biased" news sources (14% to 10% right over left) when compared to the hardcopy printed press circulation figures (c) how little influence the printed papers have as sources of news.

Fair comment.

[swaledale]

Thanks for that well informed and thoughtful response.

Oh dear another example of our LBH being totally wrong. The Guardian is certainly left leaning centrist, but publishes a range of views by a range of people, including centre right Tory politicians. Given it has slagged off Corbyn and the Labour leftists, to describe it as a left wing news source is just another example of an ill informed person spouting crap.

Still its very pleasing to see that Reform are now exploding as the various ego's collide! That Farage is now strangely silent in his adoration of Trump, given recent events. There is always a silver lining somewhere!

[swaledale]

Apologies for cross threading! Incidentally, if Id find it difficult to find examples of left wing press in this country, why refer to it as right wing press rather than simply press. Isn't it tautology

You don't think the Mail, Express Sun, Telegraph and Times are right wing? I mean I do read the Times and most of the time its reasonably factual reporting, but one cannot overlook the proprietor and the way he wields power over politics. Admittedly social media is becoming much more powerful, but there are still significant numbers of people who source their views or get their views reinforced from the mail and the Sun.

[swaledale]

So both the centre right and centre left parties have to contend with political bias. I'd contend that the mainstream centre right parties are to the left of the Mail Express et al and the centre left are to the right of the Grauniad. Reform might best align with the Mail Express etc.

But in all honesty who gets news by buying papers? Most are broadly pointless to anyone under 40, so circulation figures mean nothing. It's the 40+ generation that buy paper papers and their voting patterns are usually locked in by then. Curiously I understand that most of the Sun readers are your mainstream (traditionally labour) working people who buy it for titz and football and likely don't read the political/editorial content. So I'd argue the newspapers are fast losing relevance and the circulation gap isn't so influential.

Voters under 40 seem more influenced by social media rather than "the press" and those over 40 are unlikely to change political beliefs much despite what they read/see/hear.

The Mail might write a lot but it's really preaching to the converted and the Express surely has no place anywhere, still less newsagents shelves

Given the Tories have shifted very clearly to the right I'd say your judgement is perhaps wrong on this one.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Swale: - "to describe it (the Guardian) as a left wing news source is just another example of an ill informed person spouting crap."

It was the Press Gazette that rA cited which described the Guardian as left wing, so take it up with them! It's an interesting article on the way people source news and the biases existing in those sources. I urge you to read it. Of course much depends how much bias on bias exists within the Press Gazette itself....

[ramAnag]

Swale: - "to describe it (the Guardian) as a left wing news source is just another example of an ill informed person spouting crap."

It was the Press Gazette that rA cited which described the Guardian as left wing, so take it up with them! It's an interesting article on the way people source news and the biases existing in those sources. I urge you to read it. Of course much depends how much bias on bias exists within the Press Gazette itself....

I think the Guardian was only described in the article as ‘left leaning’, GP. I’d imagine that most reasonable people would identify it as no more than ‘centre left’.

[Geoff Parkstone]

And the Mail was defined as right leaning....

[ramAnag]

And the Mail was defined as right leaning....

Indeed, but my point was that there are far more ‘right leaning’ publications than ‘left leaning’. To what extent this is reflected in other media forms would be interesting to know. Personally I’m inclined to think of the BBC and Ch4 as being reliably objective and even handed (should give Tricky palpitations ) while the remainder seem to me to all appear more ‘right leaning’ to some greater or lesser degree.

[Geoff Parkstone]

The Press Gazette did not define ANY of the news sources in their "top 20" as right leaning in their analysis other than the Mail group. I wish you would read the sources you put forward in full instead of, as I said earlier, cherrypicking those bits that fit your agenda

[Geoff Parkstone]

There's clearly a difference between what you regard as right leaning and what (I assume) an impartial publisher regards so