EU referendum is testing the ideological certainties of Britain's Fourth Estate

The Media Column: Boris Johnson and David Cameron have a deep instictive understanding of the workings of the press

Ian Burrell
Media Editor
Sunday 28 February 2016 19:28 GMT
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David Cameron has some unlikely EU allies and opponents in the media
David Cameron has some unlikely EU allies and opponents in the media

Now that a Daily Telegraph columnist, Boris Johnson, has pitted himself against a former ITV PR man, David Cameron, the media can narrate the EU referendum in the personalised language it loves: a story of jealousy, ambition and betrayal.

Whatever the public’s ultimate engagement with the historic vote on 23 June, we can be sure that the Fourth Estate will cover the In/Out story with greater relish than if it had been a contest between Mr Cameron and Nigel Farage, who was the Prime Minister’s preferred adversary. Of course it doesn’t mean we will have a better debate on the detail of the relative merits of Brussels or Brexit.

Both Johnson and Cameron have a deep instinctive understanding of the workings of the media and its influence in determining elections. We can be sure that, before Boris put his career on the line by becoming the new figurehead of the Leave campaign, the former editor of The Spectator made careful calculations as to which newspapers would join his line of battle.

The problem for him is that this campaign is not like a general election; so much about it is counter-intuitive. Mr Cameron finds himself in the same camp as almost the whole of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. He will hope for a more sympathetic press in the next four months from liberal pro-EU titles, notably The Guardian and The Independent, than might normally be the case. The Financial Times, apparently reflecting the pro-Brussels views of the Square Mile, has also backed the Remain campaign, as has the Daily Mirror.

But when it comes to the so-called Tory press, the picture is almost as complex as on the Conservative benches in Westminster. It would be naïve to think that these titles will be immune, on an issue of such economic significance, to the views of their powerful owners. But they will also weigh the instincts of their readerships – and that’s where some intriguing dichotomies arise.

Johnson cannot be certain of the support of his own paper. For although the core of Telegraph readers are – like the Tory grassroots the Mayor of London courts – profoundly Eurosceptic, the paper’s owners Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, and Sir David’s son Aidan, chairman of Telegraph Media Group, are sympathetic to the concerns of business that Brexit would have detrimental consequences for the economy.

Such agonising is reflected in the paper’s pages, with the Business section leading on Friday with the warnings from Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, that Brexit would be “negative on all fronts”, while an op-ed piece from deputy editor Allister Heath celebrated the idea of quitting the EU, saying it would be a “catalyst” for “constitutional revolution”.

At the London Bridge headquarters of News UK, things are even more knotty. A recent Sunday Times editorial on the referendum was a model of equanimity. Professing no allegiance, it placed itself outside either spin operation as it promised to “interrogate the evidence behind the propaganda”.

The Times has been similarly Sphinx-like in declaring its affiliation, although its publication of a pro-EU letter from 36 FTSE 100 chief executives has given comfort to Downing Street.

Gove on EU referendum

Rupert Murdoch, who owns these papers, has been less equivocal, tweeting criticisms of Mr Cameron’s “non-deal” EU reforms and applauding his friend Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, for his “principles” in backing Brexit. Murdoch’s tabloid, The Sun, is vehemently anti-Brussels, telling the Prime Minister this week: “People can see for themselves Mr Cameron. There is no reformed EU.”

Its hostility to Europe is matched by the Daily Express, whose owner Richard Desmond backed Mr Farage’s Ukip editorially and financially at the general election. The Ukip leader is desperate to be a visible champion of the Leave campaign and, even if strategists would like him to take a step back, he will never be short of offers of airtime from television producers. Nonetheless, Express columnist and spy author, Frederick Forsyth, feeds the conspiracy theory that a pro-Europe “establishment” is dominating the media. “You can see them in every paper, every TV debate”, he complained.

The Daily Mail does not seem to share that view. In an extraordinary leader last Thursday it embraced the BBC for its “even-handed coverage” of the referendum. “They’re doing a grand job,” it declared, acknowledging that “these are words you might not expect in the Mail”. In British media terms, this was a coupling as unlikely as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and coincided with one of the broadcaster’s darkest moments; publication of Dame Janet Smith’s report on the BBC’s complicity in the crimes of Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall.

BBC News might be disconcerted by this endorsement of its journalism by the Mail. It normally cites criticism from the paper, along with similar gripes from the political left, as evidence of its neutrality. Unlike newspapers, broadcast news organisations are forbidden by Ofcom rules from cheerleading for either side. But they – and the BBC in particular – will not be able to avoid social media accusations of bias, justified or not. The Scottish referendum campaign showed how these polarising constitutional issues have the potential to damage the BBC’s reputation and the final weeks of this two-horse EU race will be a supreme test for its newsroom.

The Mail has no such worries; its very essence is its sharply defined ideology. And the paper’s historic distrust of Europe dovetails conveniently with its dislike of the Prime Minister, who it subjects to relentless personal attacks. Stories that support the Remain campaign are reported in the Mail with disdain, accompanied by a campaigning “Planet Fear” red stamp logo. “Now HSBC ‘talks down the pound’,” it noted this week with audible exasperation. “PM’s new scare: the cost of your holiday will rise”, was another story given the “Planet Fear” treatment.

It was reputedly the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine, wife of Mr Gove, who gave her husband the line that the EU “is an analogue union in a digital age”. The Leave campaign will need this suggestion that it is internet savvy, given the presentational PR problems arising from having competing campaigns (Vote Leave, Leave.EU, and umbrella group Grassroots Out) and a phalanx of leaders (Johnson, Farage, Gove).

It can count on the Mail’s backing, but not necessarily that of the Mail on Sunday, which revealed Johnson’s “secret dinner” with Brexit ally Gove and appears closer to the thinking of the chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust, Jonathan Harmsworth, fourth Viscount Rothermere, who is regarded as pro-European. In a leader article, the MoS talked of “equally matched sides” each with “strong arguments and persuasive spokesmen and women”. It concluded: “Let the great debate begin.”

The campaign will surely get nastier in the weeks ahead but, for a few months at least, there is a different order in the politics of the British press.

The New York Times still bucks the trends

The late David Carr of The New York Times was, he admitted, “not what you would call the classic Times man”.

His route to becoming media and culture writer for the “Gray Lady” was unusual; he was previously a cocaine addict and alcoholic. That hardship brought a sensibility to his coverage of the changing tech landscape that went beyond the usual focus on traffic data and fast fortunes.

In the 2011 documentary feature Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, he angrily challenged Vice’s pretensions to revolutionise foreign reporting. “Just because you put on a fucking safari helmet and looked at some poop doesn’t give you the right to insult what we do,” Carr told Vice co-founder Shane Smith.

Carr died last year, aged 58, but the NYT has created a fellowship in his honour; 600 young applicants were asked to appraise his work. John Herrman lauded his ability to “relentlessly demystify”. Amanda Hess admired his analysis of Isis’s exploitation of social media. Greg Howard cited Carr’s dedication to research.

Dean Baquet, the paper’s executive editor, said they had decided to select all three. And so Carr’s spirit endures.

A very fond farewell to ‘What the Papers Say

BBC Radio 4 is dropping What the Papers Say, a show with 60 years of history.

Having presented the 15-minute programme on several occasions I am heartbroken to see it go. As will be many of the loyal 550,000 listeners for whom the sound of its introductory fanfare and pipes had become a treasured part of Sunday evenings.

As host and scriptwriter you would sit in the studio opposite four dry-humoured actors. One was a regular on The Archers. Their vocal range and talent for mimicry was a delight. WTPS was a celebration of wit, well-honed prose and expert insight. Presenters were also encouraged to quote from digital-only media as well as the press.

The BBC explains the axing of the show as cost cutting. Given the tiny budget of WTPS in its graveyard slot in the schedule, the saving will be minuscule for an organisation that spends £3.6bn annually. At least it will live on in a reduced format on Saturday mornings on the World Service.

After the grim pathos of its Savile apologies last week, this is hardly an opportune moment for Radio 4 to lose a show that allowed alternative news voices into the BBC output.

Twitter: @iburrell

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