I've been reading up on the media - in particular newspapers - and found horrible bias when it comes to immigration, in some papers. The distortion verges on plain lies. So I wrote a load of it up and put it on my page on
UK immigration:
(1) A Sunday Times internal investigative group called Insight was once given a directive to investigate immigration and asylum. "They found that it was true, as right-wingers had alleged, that the asylum process was in chaos; but they also found impressive evidence that immigration was good for the country" reports Nick Davies: "They were allowed to write only the first part of the story". This type of selection bias operates in full swing on hot topics such as immigration and skews the public's understanding of immigration issues.
(2) Take the Daily Mail's regurgitation of a report from The Economist about an increase in foreign workers in London. The Daily Mail randomly inserted negative (and untrue) commentary about asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, and distorted the facts to the point of complete falsehood. “The Economist report was almost entirely good news: the influx had given London the highest growth rate in the century; 67% of these foreign workers were from high-income countries; many of them were better educated than most Londoners; they were particularly diligent workers; and, by pushing up the price of houses, they had allowed a mass of Londoners to fulfil their dream of selling up and moving to the countryside which, in turn, had boosted the economy of rural towns. But in the hands of the Mail, this became bad news about the usual enemy.
The Mail opened its story with two sentences which were 100% fiction: 'London has become the immigration capital of the world, according to a report. More foreigners are now setting in London than even New York or Los Angeles.' Nothing like that appeared in the Economist report. The story went on to insert a killer paragraph, which was also pure Daily Mail, based on nothing at all from The Economist: 'Hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, as well as failed asylum seekers, have set up home in the capital in the past ten years.' [... The Mail continued, ] claiming that these foreigners were 'forcing many Londoners to flee the capital as property prices soar'.”
Most migrant workers do their job and go home, paying taxes while here, and not even bothering to stay for pensions or the welfare of old age. The Daily Mail strikes fear into the populace with its inflated stories, misleading numbers and bias. People read the paper and get angry about immigration in general, furthering the type of trash culture attitude that makes people vote for anti-immigration single-issue parties, and buy the Daily Mail in the first place.
(3) Another example from the Daily Mail concerned a court case. I return again to Nick Davies' critical analysis: "There was a court hearing which caught the Mail's eye. It could have been reported like this: 'A High Court judge yesterday moved to protect children who have fled from rape, murder and massacre in war zones. In a ruling which was welcomed by refugee groups and specialist lawyers, Mr Justice Burnton attacked local authorities have denied housing to refugee children simply because they could not prove they were under 18.' The Mail reported it like this: 'The beleaguered immigration system was dealt another blow yesterday when a High Court judge made it harder for officials to catch fraudulent young asylum seekers.'"
(4) This type of news reporting infuses normal issues not otherwise directly related to immigration. "The
Mail ran an investigation into the easy availability of false identity papers. They could have linked this to all kinds of people, who might want to cheat the system - professional fraudsters, benefit fiddlers, escaped prisoners, wanted criminals, runaway fathers, runaway sex offenders, undischarged bankrupts, defrocked priests, disqualified drivers and discredited journalists - but they focused the entire front-page story and inside spread on 'bogus asylum seekers and fanatics'."
(5) Housing. This is an issue in a country as crowded as the UK. The law requires a higher standard of housing for old people, reports Nick Davies. However asylum seekers could still be housed in substandard accommodation. The Daily Mail reported the following shocker: 'WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY DO WE LIVE IN WHEN FRAIL OLD LADIES ARE TURNED OUT OF THEIR HOME TO MAKE WAY FOR FIT YOUNG ASYLUM SEEKERS' and 'WIDOWS ORDERED OUT, THEN ASYLUM SEEKERS MOVE IN'.
Some very popular papers report on immigration in entirely skewed and negative terms. The formula is that everything bad can be tied to immigration and foreigners; that both those groups are equated with fraudulent asylum seekers and illegal immigration. It is impossible to reach a sensible view of the truth by relying on the hot-blooded, xenophobic and misleading diatribes of some popular newspapers such as The Daily Mail, the Sunday Times and The Sun. How can the populace ever vote in elections wisely, when their understanding of migration is tainted with this type of horrible bias? The emotional response (even if followed up with more careful news reports seen elsewhere) is hard to replace with balanced tolerance. There is nothing to stop the papers endlessly peddling this type of trash: it sells because it panders to fear and ignorance, and in being sold, the papers increase those two wretched traits.
For my extended and wider criticism of the negative role the mass media plays in the modern world, read:
And for the page on UK immigration, to which I've added the above examples: