Euro-electorate in the dark

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Posted by Granville Williams

As the European Elections loom on 22 May 2014 how well-informed will the UK electorate be when they put their crosses on the ballot papers? Not very, I’m afraid.

The 'Silly season top ten - and more - of misleading EU media stories' blog on the Europa website has no problem selecting news stories to rebut from a stream of downright and inaccurate reports in the UK press (1). It is a sad reflection on the integrity of swathes of the UK media that damaging and distorted stories are so pervasive.

We have just seen the blowback from the obsessive media coverage, which conjured up the threat of millions of Bulgarians and Romanians, flooding into the UK after restrictions were lifted in January 2014.

The Europa blog identified:
"... stories referring glibly to benefit tourism by EU migrants as if such a thing was a given, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that it is widespread. Indeed, all the available research - such as this Institute of Fiscal Studies report - suggests that EU migrants come to the UK to work, tend to leave if they are no longer working and contribute far more to the Exchequer than they take out.

“But EU migrants cannot win with parts of the media, because when they are not being accused of being workshy they are accused of taking British jobs. Again, hard evidence, as in this study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, tends to suggest that this is not in general the case."

Such balanced assessments are completely absent from the UK Eurosceptic press. Four newspaper groups - Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, the Barclay brothers' Telegraph group, Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail and General Trust, and Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell - have a consistently hostile editorial stance towards the European Union (EU) and carry caricatured reporting of its activities. They treat their readers with contempt, as a rabble to be roused rather than citizens to be informed.
 
These four groups have 75 percent of the market for UK national newspapers. This inevitably has profound democratic implications in the way a distorted, negative public understanding of Europe is created. The barrage of inaccurate and/or incomplete information risks making it more difficult for the public to make an informed judgement on EU issues.

But the sheer weight and distortion of the Eurosceptic press impacts on the broadcast media, particularly the BBC's coverage of Europe. In a major analysis of BBC impartiality by Cardiff University researchers one focus was coverage of Europe (2). European coverage from two years was analysed: the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, which accounted for 70 percent of coverage, and 2012 when negotiations over ratifying the EU budget accounted for 72 percent of coverage. In both years the debate was dominated by the representatives of the two main parties and the EU was framed narrowly as a threat to British interests.

The research made two points about this coverage: “First, it saw Europe almost exclusively through the prism of political infighting between Labour and the Conservatives so a rounded debate about the multiplicity of ways the relationship between the EU and UK affects Britain was almost completely absent. Second, although UKIP received very little airtime, Euroscepticism was very well represented through Conservative politicians.

“Voices arguing for the benefits of EU membership were very sparse. This was a consequence of Labour politicians being unwilling to make the positive case for Europe because of its perceived unpopularity amongst voters. This meant that business lobbyists provided much of what little pro-EU opinion was available."

What can we do? At the heart of the problem is the issue of media pluralism. A healthy media culture should mean that there is a real range and diversity of voices, of creative expression, ideas, information and opinion. Such a plurality of voices, reflected in the media citizens use and consume, is necessary for democracy.

We need policies to ensure media plurality in the UK and Europe. You can take one simple step to help us to get that. Sign up to the European Initiative for Media Pluralism and spread the word.

DATELINE: 28 January, 2014

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