Mitchell and Webb: "Are we the baddies?"
Channel: Labour Heartlands
Date: 2023-08-07

Journalists and the mainstream media should ask the question - are we the bad guys?

The incestuous relationship between mainstream media and power is not unique to the United States. As Caitlin Johnstone highlights, the cozy dynamic between journalists and politicians permeates Western media, including British outlets.

Johnstone traces how the composition of newsrooms has evolved to overrepresent elite circles. Where working-class perspectives once diversified coverage, now Ivy League and Oxbridge dominate. And proximity breeds sympathy. The old adversarial dynamic between reporters and officials has melted into an "us vs. them" mentality where journalists identify more with their well-heeled subjects than their readers.

Add incentives to echo official narratives, and worldviews warp. Nonconformists get filtered out of the system. Telegraph and Times alums control messaging like NYT and WaPo grads across the pond. The end result is the same - a media ecosystem that acts as propaganda arm for the powerful.

The context may differ, but the UK faces the same crisis of perspective that plagues US media. And it will take equally bold solutions to bring balance back to the British press.

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