Thread by @fascinatorfun

This is a very fine piece of writing (again) by ⁦@NickCohen4⁩ reflecting that the mess we are in is as much a failure of the media as the political classes (with honourable exceptions)

If you don’t follow him, start today.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

2/. When the honourable exceptions have been listed, the British media have not held politicians to account or followed stories regardless of the consequences. Largely liberal broadcasters have so overcompensated they’ve forgotten why they went into journalism in the first place.

3/. “They believe a 52-48 majority has freed them from the duty to scrutinise, regardless of whether – and this is the critical point – the 17.4 million who voted leave want them to or not.”

4/ “Then there’s the undeniable fact that privileged journalists, like their political counterparts, subconsciously know they don’t have skin in the game and will not suffer the fate of farmers, car workers and aviation engineers.

5/ “Standing above all these, however, has been a refusal to reveal the menace behind the masks of the right’s character actors.

... Britain’s privileged history explains the denial in part.

6/ “We are a moderate island, runs the national myth, extremism happens over the water & far away. But the refusal to tear the masks away matters more. I have never seen a TV broadcaster hold Farage to account for his blatant misrepresentations of the consequences of no deal

7/ “ The BBC could barely bring itself to cover his and his financial backers’ links to the Russian embassy. Journalists call Johnson “Boris”, as if he were a pal entitled to mates’ rates they would never grant a stranger.

8/ “And when Eddie Mair, then of the BBC, did his job and subjected him to a tough interview in 2017, what would have been a routine occurrence in a healthy democracy caused a sensation.....”

YUP. A shameful and weak failure in journalism as well as politics