Friday, January 31, 2020

Brexit and the Lying British Press



One hour ago, as the rest of the world shook its collective heads in incredulity, the UK finally left the European Union. If you are struggling to understand why the UK would voluntarily withdraw from one of the world's largest trading blocks then you should probably ignore the British press and read a German newspaper instead.

Zeit has published an interesting interactive map consisting of over 2,300 British newspaper front pages from the last three years. Brexit in British Newspapers provides an interesting insight into the relentless anti-Eu propaganda which constantly makes the headlines on the front pages of the British press. Zeit has only looked at newspapers from the last three years but the British media's campaign against the European Union has been running for at least the last twenty years.

Over this time British newspapers have presented the European Union as the enemy of Britain and have attempted to convey this in a series of lies about the European Union. In the past these lies have taken the form of ridiculous claims about the EU wanting to ban playgrounds, cut down British apple trees, ban straight cucumbers, ban curved bananas, ban church bells, ban British cheese ... ad infinitum ...

If you explore Zeit's map you can see that these obviously ridiculous stories have not been so popular over the last three years. In these more recent years the British press has been more keen to paint the European Union as a huge immigrant threat and a constant drain on the UK economy. Unfortunately over the next few years, as the UK tries to negotiate itself out of the European Union, the lies of the British media are very unlikely to stop.

1 comment:

Dr.Flay said...

Map ? What map ?
It is just a zoom-able canvas like many art project sites.
None of it links to a location.

It also completely ignores the pro-EU press and media in the UK, focusing on 3 or 4 of the worst papers that try to induce panic and higher sales.
Anyone would think that the other half of the population and press do not exist or have a voice.
By focusing on one side of the front-cover click-bait, itself becomes more click-bait outrage.