The Right-Wing Press Still Rules The UK
‘If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ — George Orwell
In August of this year, the Guardian published an exposé of an ally firm of Boris Johnson that ran a ‘secret’ Facebook propaganda network:
‘The news follows the Guardian’s April report that Crosby’s company was behind a series of hugely influential pro-Brexit Facebook groups, which spent as much as £1m seeding the idea of a no-deal exit from the EU in the minds of the British public.’
This wasn’t so much a revelation as it was confirmation of how right-wingers use propaganda to manipulate the mindsets of impressionable voters. Murdoch’s paper-based scaremongering has done this rather successfully for years; his newspapers have endorsed every prime minister since the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Tony Blair was aware of the Murdoch effect and flew to Australia in 1995 to meet with the kingmaker himself. What was said in the meeting remains a mystery but, on the 18th March 1997, The Sun plastered its front cover with the headline ‘The Sun Backs Blair’. The Labour party won with a landslide majority less than three months later.
You would think that, in the digital age, Murdoch’s fingers would be slipping through the strings that puppeteer electoral…
