{"id":2405,"date":"2014-11-25T02:24:47","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T02:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=2405"},"modified":"2016-08-30T23:32:43","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T23:32:43","slug":"its-a-sad-day-when-three-limp-flags-are-top-of-the-news-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/its-a-sad-day-when-three-limp-flags-are-top-of-the-news-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a sad day when three limp flags are top of the news agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Shaw<\/a>, University of Stirling<\/em><\/p>\n

Robert Peston, business editor at BBC news recently declared that his employer is \u201ccompletely obsessed\u201d<\/a> by the agenda set by newspapers. The broadcaster, he argued, is constantly taking the content of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph in particular as an indication of what it should be covering. These papers decide what is newsworthy and which issues warrant inclusion into a tight news schedule.<\/p>\n

And looking at the coverage<\/a> given to the unfortunate tweet sent by Labour MP Emily Thornberry in the run up to the Rochester and Strood by-election, it seems he has a point. Thornberry tweeted a picture of a house in the constituency. Out of its windows hung three English flags and in its driveway was parked a white van. The caption read: Image from Rochester.<\/p>\n

Thornberry almost immediately resigned from her position as shadow attorney general and apologised for any offence caused.<\/p>\n

What, you might wonder, is the story? The BBC had an answer. Assistant political editor Norman Smith sombrely warned that the tweet played into a \u201cvery, very dangerous theme\u201d. It fuelled concerns that Labour is \u201csomehow dismissive, patronising, contemptuous of its own core voters\u201d. Smith didn\u2019t enlighten us further on how it achieved this though.<\/p>\n

And so the story found itself at the top of the news agenda, alongside the results of the by-election. It trumped an NHS teetering on the edge of crisis, sinking wages for workers, worries about extremism in schools and draconian cuts to police budgets. It was a no-brainer for the BBC.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s true that the tweet has transported the Westminster establishment, MPs and political journalists into a paroxysm of excitement. Assorted politicians expressed their anger, dismay and fury. The Daily Mail raged at the \u201csneering elite<\/a>\u201d and the Telegraph accused mainstream politics in general of losing the working class vote<\/a>. The Sun went to the effort of sending the owner of the three English flags to confront Thornberry at her home. She wasn\u2019t in.<\/p>\n

No doubt, Thornberry was a little foolish. The tweet was a joke that spectacularly backfired. But was it really grounds for her resignation? The fact is that the story was a piece of trivia. It was a non-event that was turned into a huge story by the Tory press.<\/p>\n

The BBC\u2019s Nick Robinson pointed out that it gave the right-wing press an \u201calternative narrative\u201d for the Rochester by-election. While they waited for the polls to close, a bit of Labour bashing was the perfect distraction. But why should the BBC follow suit? Why should the national broadcaster confirm and validate that narrative? Surely the BBC, as a highly prestigious public service broadcaster, has different standards when judging the newsworthiness of a story. Or maybe it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

It looks a lot like the sad case of Thornberry has proved Peston\u2019s point. Seeing that everyone else was jumping on the incident, holding their front pages for the latest twist, the BBC fell victim to its \u201csafety first\u201d mentality. Better to follow the herd than look like you\u2019ve missed the boat on what they think is the biggest story of the day.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Eric Shaw is a member of the Labour party<\/em><\/p>\n

In the past he has received funding from the ESRC and Carnegie<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eric Shaw, University of Stirling Robert Peston, business editor at BBC news recently declared that his employer is \u201ccompletely obsessed\u201d by the agenda set by newspapers. The broadcaster, he argued, is constantly taking the content of the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph in particular as an indication of what it should be covering. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":7552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2405"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7553,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2405\/revisions\/7553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}