MORNING SERIAL
THIS in itself was not a new tactic as during the 2019 general election the Tories banned the Mirror from joining all other major news providers on Boris Johnson’s battle bus following negative coverage.
The challenge for journalists comes from the rise of social media and the decline in newspaper revenue. With social media and a smartphone everyone now has a voice.
In some ways this is fantastic, people who are victims of power or in need are able to share their plight and shine a light on their situation.
It is also a prime breeding ground for misinformation. In 2018 a picture circulated on Twitter of an aerial view of a large crowd of hundreds.
The caption said it was a mass protest in London for far right activist (and at time of writing ironically a refugee in Spain) Tommy Robinson to be released from prison.
This was widely shared when in fact it was neither a protest, in London or recent. It was a group of Liverpool fans, in Liverpool, celebrating the 2005 Champions League final.
A real journalist, at a real publication is trained to assess and scrutinise that image.
A random person on Facebook is not. A random bloke with one Twitter account has the potential to reach as many on social media as a highly trained epidemiologist.
Not all opinions are created equal and good journalism is about being balanced by giving prominence to the informed voices.
Not that everyone trusts journalists.
A 2019 Ipsos MORI poll found that only 26% of people trusted journalists to tell the truth (though this was almost double the figure for politicians)
Trust in some journalists did see a small increase during the early parts of the pandemic.
A YouGov poll in March 2020 found that trust in broadsheet newspaper journalists has hit a six-year high since the 2019 general election (40%), though trust in tabloids such as the Daily Mail and Sun continued to fall.