Early in the pandemic, the Telegraph published an article suggesting that a "cull" of elderly people might be economically "beneficial": metro.co.uk/2020/03/11/tel…
Then the Telegraph published a series of articles downplaying the threat of COVID19 and attacking the public health measures taken to address it: theguardian.com/world/2021/jan…
Almost 100,000 people have now died - many of them elderly. Britain's COVID19 death toll is reportedly now among the worst in the world: nbcnews.com/news/world/bri…
"The serious concerns raised about the treatment of older people during the pandemic have highlighted the real-world consequences of this kind of language. The call for a ‘cull’ of the elderly was one particularly extreme response to the crisis" ageing-better.org.uk/news/uks-damag…
UK journalism is one of Britain's most socially-exclusive professions - and this lack of representation is often reflected in the way that the UK media covers issues relating to excluded & marginalised groups
The UK government is reportedly planning to install former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre as chair of the broadcasting regulator OFCOM. Some background: independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi… 1/
Polls have consistently shown that the UK public currently has a much higher level of trust in TV and radio media than they do in the UK newspaper industry, which has consistently been found to be the least trusted in Europe: pressgazette.co.uk/survey-finds-t… /2
The UK public's low level of trust in our newspaper industry should perhaps come as no surprise. In 2016 the Daily Mail and Sun were both called out for "fuelling prejudice" in an international report on rising racist violence: independent.co.uk/news/media/pre… /3
Britain needs a media that tells the truth, and reports accurately & fairly. We urgently need to address the crisis of poor quality journalism in the UK press: theguardian.com/media/2021/jan…
Hard to see how the UK press can win back the public's trust until standards of truth & accuracy are significantly improved pressgazette.co.uk/survey-finds-t…
Did you know that the far-right have a strategy to "separate the T" from the rest of the LGBT community & isolate trans people from their allies? splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017…
Today's Telegraph carries an article suggesting that "transgenderism" poses an existential threat to lesbians:
The Dangerous Speech project highlights the danger of presenting a minority group as a "mortal threat". With trans people already facing sustained hostility from a number of UK media outlets, today's headline from the Telegraph has raised new concerns dangerousspeech.org/faq/?faq=200
The Morning Star has apologised for a cartoon which overtly dehumanised trans people. This had caused widespread concern at a time when anti-trans hate crime and hostility have been surging: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/apolog… /1
The Morning Star offers their apology on the basis that the cartoon was "offensive to trans people". Yet the primary reason many people are concerned about anti-LGBT hate is that it causes real harm in real people's lives - not simply that discrimination is "offensive". /2
Attacks such as this are not only "offensive to trans people" - when newspapers demonise and dehumanise the most marginalised groups within our society, everyone who supports human rights & opposes discrimination has a reason to be concerned. /3
Does the UK media have a racism problem? Some UK journalists seem outraged at the very suggestion – but what does the evidence tell us? /1 thedailybeast.com/daily-show-hos…
Way back in 2010, experts were warning that hostile UK media coverage was fuelling a rise in anti-Muslim hate crime: theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/28… /2
As long ago as 2008, the award-winning journalist Nick Davies published a shocking exposé of systemic racism at the Daily Mail, in his book Flat Earth News: