Trump and Brexit: still existing in parallel media universes
Opinion
Partisan coverage of Trump’s indictment and Brexit’s impact on travel may appeal to the faithful, but not necessarily attractive audiences for advertisers.
These are difficult days for Fox News. No even more difficult than usual.
The dilemma is what to do about the arraignment on 34 criminal charges of former US president Donald J Trump.
Luckily Fox has been spared the tricky decision on whether or not to cover their hero live in the dock because live coverage of the hearing has been banned.
But what does Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News think of the unprecedented business of charging a former President?
The first reaction on Fox to the news produced surprise even though the possibility had been in the news for weeks.
Surprise was rapidly followed by outrage that a public prosecutor had had the temerity to insist that no-one was above the law.
The indictment proved that America was descending into a police state.
And then the dime started to drop — backed up by subsequent opinion polls — prosecution might actually be good for the electoral prospects of The Donald. At least in the Republican Party.
The indictments instantly galvanised the faithful, and Trump support compared with other Republican presidential hopefuls shot up and an instant $4m poured into the already bulging Trump coffers.
So let’s get this straight. Is prosecution good for Fox News or not, given that there could be three more indictments to come, for attempted electoral fraud in Georgia, the holding on to of security sensitive presidential documents and his role in the events of January 6th?
It has become a truism in media circles to endlessly repeat the mantra that trust is a vital selling point for the existing media in its existential battle against the tech giants.
It would therefore be wise for Fox to try to redeem at least a shred of its trashed reputation by telling the story as it is — straight.
This would be radical for an organisation that went on spreading the lie that Biden stole the last election from Trump even though we now know that both Murdoch and his leading delusional TV hosts knew all along it was nonsense.
The lie was too valuable in commercial terms to undermine, amidst a fear that telling the truth would send Fox viewers off to even more right-wing pastures.
Any kind of redemption by telling the truth is therefore too toxic for Fox.
But Trump the martyr and a revived Trump campaign as a result, that sounds remarkably like a business strategy going forward.
In the US there are always many narratives for the truth and multiple versions of trust to choose from.
A parallel UK universe
Matters are not quite so blatant in the UK, although there are still shades of parallel universes, if not always on the facts then certainly on context and explanation.
At the recent Society of Editors conference, Sunday Times editor Ben Taylor said he knew exactly what his readers did and did not want.
They wanted analysis and the story behind the story and, above all, they did not want political spin and self-serving interviews with politicians.
Taylor is right, at least for his readers, but where does that leave the right-wing papers and their websites?
Even a quick look at their treatment of two prominent recent news stories — the traffic jams at Dover and the agreement in principle to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership — raises major issues of trust.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that their readers are quite deliberately being misled.
The weekend delays of up to 20 hours at Dover involving at its peak more than 100 coaches was big news for those going to Europe for half-term breaks and those planning to go next week or later in the summer.
There was some bad weather in the Channel and large numbers trying to travel and that was explanation enough for the Daily Express, The Sun and the Daily Mail.
According to the Express, French officials were told to work harder rather using the “lame excuse“ of Brexit for Dover chaos.
The Sun blamed bad weather and huge volumes of traffic for the delay.
The Daily Mail displayed masterful obfuscation by quoting Home Secretary Suella Braverman as rejecting “suggestions” that Brexit could be to blame, instead highlighting “acute pressure” at a busy time of year.
Anyone who knew anything about the reality, including the Port of Dover authorities and the specialist travel journalist, the Independent’s Simon Calder, insisted that Brexit was the primary cause.
The UK was now a “third party” country and the current and continuing rules stipulate that French officials have to check and stamp every passport and that takes time.
Brexit time.
Calder also warned that everything was about to get worse when the EU introduced face recognition technology, and with it charges, later this year.
The Mail did not ignore Calder entirely.
Near the end of a page lead story the paper reported: “Travel writer Simon Calder said processing times had increased sharply since the UK left the EU.”
The story later moved on a bit with Downing Street finally contradicting the Home Secretary and admitting that Brexit was a factor in the delays and it also became clear that the number of coaches crossing the Channel at peak holiday times may have to be limited.
There was no room for either piece of information in yesterday’s Mail, while The Sun contented itself with noting that unspecified “significant contingency plans” would be put in place for this coming weekend.
For the right-wing papers the Pacific agreement was an example of the UK roaring ahead after Brexit with a £1.8bn trade deal.
Unfortunately there was no explanation that the £1.8bn was over a decade or that it amounted to 0.08% of total UK trade compared to the 4% loss predicted by the Office of Budget Responsibility because of Brexit. Some estimates put the likely loss as high as 5.5%.
There was also no space to point out that the UK already has trade agreements with nine out of the 11 members or that there is controversy over the only real “gain” in Malaysia because of its controversial palm oil production.
Turning a blind eye to Brexit and uncritically exaggerating the importance of new trade deals may play well with the dwindling ranks of the faithful, rather like Fox and Trump The Martyr in the US.
It will do nothing to attract the younger, better-educated readers advertisers would prefer. The sort who might be stuck in queues taking their children skiing in France and know exactly why the delays are happening and don’t much care being lied to by either politicians or newspapers.
Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — read his column here.