, 33 tweets, 14 min read Read on Twitter
Good morning.
Thread here on a tale of two marches.
This may take some time.
@RaymondSnoddy @mk1969 @amandaloviza @BCU_CBS @ThatTimWalker @Andrew_Adonis @campbellclaret
(1)
Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands marched through London to ask for a second referendum on #brexit. It was announced from the platform that more than a million had taken part. There were certainly a lot.
(2)
Yesterday, thousands more were on the march to protest about the betrayal of the failure to deliver #brexit that day.
(3)
Figures for yesterday's demonstration have been vague, but "tens of thousands" is a popular guess. Let's be kind and say 100k
And let's reduce last Saturday's to the lowest suggested figure of 400k.
So a quarter as many.
So how does Press coverage of the two events compare?
(4)
Let's start with the Remainer Press - essentially the Guardian/Observer.
Here's the Observer last Sunday. Four news pages and a leader.
(5)
The #PeoplesVoteMarch was slightly stale news by Monday - even though the popular figure was still a million, which is a heck of a lot of people to take to the streets - but The Guardian still made it the main feature of its 2nd spread. No crowd pix, all speakers
(6)
And here it is this morning after the dramas of non-Brexit day.
Farage's march also makes the central feature of the 2nd inside spread. Picture of an attractive woman and a fairly sympathetic colour piece by @estheraddley
(7)
Moving to @thetimes. (Backed Remain in the referendum, unconvinced about PV, thinks May's deal is least worst option)
Last Monday, like the Guardian, it made the march the nub of its 2nd inside spread. Also like the Guardian, there was no p1 mention
(8)
This morning's coverage was also similar to the Guardian's: a mention in the splash, a chunk of space and a @patrick_kidd sketch that was quite generous to Farage.
(9)
In between, the more brexity sister paper @thesundaytimes opted for a file picture of May and Lidington for the front page over a live news picture of <1m on the streets. The protest was merged with the political story inside.
(10)
@theipaper doesn't have a Sunday edition. So its first and only coverage of the PV march was a picture caption on its second spread.
(11)
Today it has a picture of an aggressive demonstrator in Downing Street, the Farage march and story on its 1st inside spread and a pic of a Remain demonstrator on the 2nd spread (I thought remainers were avoiding the place)
Pretty balanced!
(12)
And finally for the Remain (ish) tendency: @DailyMirror
Last Monday its only mention of the march was coupled with the 5m petition (remember that?) on an inside spread.
Today it goes for a montage of random pictures - with a pretty girl dominant - and a little caption story.
(14)
In between, sister paper, Sunday Mirror, made the PV march the top half of its single Brexit spread.
Time to move on to the hard-core Brexiter press
(15)
The Sun is the country's best-selling paper. So here's what it told all its readers about the PV march last Sunday:
Bottom of page 2: "Remoans of the day". Snide captions superimposed on pic and just four pars of text
(16)
So little that I may as well reproduce it in full:
(17)
Come Monday, it was not only an unwelcome story, but also stale news. So there wasn't a word in the paper. But on Tuesday it was happy to report that the attendance figure had been halved (courtesy of a website) to a mere 400k
(18)
Today, however, we get a montage of pix (cue pretty woman in kilt) on the 2nd brexit spread and 7 paragraphs that emphasises that the march ("more than 10,000) was "peaceful" - in spite of "darker mood" later. Last Saturday's was even more peaceful, but no one noted that
(19)
On to the Telegraph.
Like the Sunday Times, the Sunday Telegraph managed to avoid putting a picture of the PV march on the front. Instead it restricted coverage to inside spread focused on Peter Bone and Marcus Fysh casting doubt on the attendance figures
(20)
Come Monday, the march was worth only a couple of pars at the bottom of a story about Hammond perhaps backing 2nd ref. Maybe valid judgment, given Hammond was new. Corbyn pretending to be Ernie Wise preferred as main pic to postage stamp of the marchers
(21)
Oh yes, and there was not even a sentence on the front because that was given over to Mr Johnson's latest pitch for the leadership.
(22)
Today, though, there's a picture montage on the first brexit spread (inc pretty girl in kilt), while the second spread is entirely devoted to the march with both text and pictures. One was headlined "Day Brexit voters found their voice"
(23)
...while the main story also made the point that this was a peaceful march and this (rather extraordinary?) assertion:
"March 29 will now go down in history as a very British day of protest".
(24)
Next up, the Mail. First, the daily.
Usual caveats of old news etc for Monday paper. The march is coupled with Brexity roadblocks for an essay by Dominic Sandbrook, who manages to attack Remainers and the BBC in opening par.
He continues "It's easy to sneer..."
(25)
Today, the Mail is incandescent. It's even turned on @patel4witham. But in the middle of its anger at MPs, it gives a full spread to the march (inc girl in kilt) with a nice little gibe at the "elites".
(26)
In between, the even more brexity Mail on Sunday put its PV coverage on the 3rd spread under headline "march of the unbeleavers". Charlotte Gill is not impressed at the move to "overturn largest democratic vote in history", a point reinforced with ragout of Sarah Vine tweet
(27)
Gill also says marchers have lost the plot, but seems rather surprised to conclude that they were also rather nice.
Perhaps she might tell Vine, who also tweeted that she thought any leavers on the march would be lynched.
(28)
And so, finally, to the Express. The Sunday paper was cute. It splashed on "Britain marches" without ever mentioning the million (or 400k) who did the marching or where to. They were sent inside - and coupled with Farage's guest appearance at his own trek from Sunderland
(29)
Next day, the daily ignored the march altogether (old news etc), reporting only Hammond's suggestion that a 2nd ref might be an idea. This was an "outrage".
(30)
Whereas today...
Front page pic and headline plus the first inside spread for pictures - although, to be fair, not a great deal of text.
(31)
So there we have it. Up to 1m march, 6m sign a petition, and half the press downplay and deride.
Yet when a fraction of that number turn out, they get full coverage.
Is this reflecting or shaping readers' views?
Take a look at those latest opinion polls.
Have a nice day.
(end)
PS: Given there were so many thousands of folk on that march, kilt girl (and "sister") must have something special about her. She features in three papers and in two different pix. What's more, she's assiduous. Isn't this her outside Parliament in January (h/t @juliatanner)?
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