Reasons To Hate The Sun Pt. 960

[Rob Ray]

Well I AM working class unless you're one of those people who reckon going to Uni magically conveys middle-class status. My taste in music is often up for debate.

As I said, your class is of no interest to me. What is of interest is the false barrier you insist on putting up between your 'enlightened' outlook (because you don't read the sun) and your prejudiced views of the (other, then) working class people who do read it.

Newspapers often aren't terribly profitable but give a lot of power and influence to those who control them. Like our career politicians these days, those in high positions in newspapers aren't in it for the salary or share options, pension etc, it's the other kickbacks that make it worthwhile for them

The Sun doesn't seem to particularly agree with an elite consensus (elites are often in competition with one another, anyway), the editorial tends to be rabid bollocks rather than agreement with any consensus I can think of.

Different sections of the media perform different functions. The Sun is in the market of distraction, rather than the agenda-setting market of rags like the Times.

The fact that it's a market is irrelevant - The Sun it pushes nothing but light diversion and bigotry.

Newspapers are highly profitable, and getting more so all the time despite declining sales. They don't admittedly make as much as a bank might, but then again neither does footwear, would you accuse Nike of not having any reason to follow the bottom line and being entirely ideologically driven?

Editors do not make the decisions on overall policy (I say this as someone who works in the industry, as opposed to someone who patently does not). My editor makes his day-to-day decisions on content entirely within the framework laid out by the advertising department, and by his superiors at the paper (board of directors). Individual journalists have to self-censor on the same basis.

If the editor digresses from that framework, he is disciplined or fired. The famous overt example of this was a paper in the US, where the situation was taken to its logical conclusion when the chief exec sent out a cyclical demanding that all stories involving any companies whould be okayed by the ad people first. mostly it's more implied than actively enforced, but it is all-pervasive.

How on earth do you expect to be taken seriously if you try and divorce papers from capital interests?

 

[8ball]

Newspapers are highly profitable, and getting more so all the time despite declining sales.

Putting aside Murdoch, who is something of an exception, do you have any examples?

Editors do not make the decisions on overall policy.

By 'editorial' I meant the dumb little 'The Sun says' columns, not overall editorial policy.

How on earth do you expect to be taken seriously if you try and divorce papers from capital interests?

I never did that, I just pointed out that the Sun exists to deliver to a different market than the times and that the real kickbacks for the people with the most control come from the power conferred by the position rather than immediate fiscal interests. I was thinking more at the level of Murdoch than Wade, there, though - maybe I should have been more clear.

 

[Rob Ray]

They all make profit, if they didn't they wouldn't be in business. Johnston Press recently announcd a 9% rise, Archant a 19% rise, Trinity Mirror, Guardian group, News International all made big bucks.

By 'editorial' I meant the dumb little 'The Sun says' columns, not overall editorial policy.

But The Sun Says is part of editorial policy. If it was the view of an individual writer it would be bylined as such.

I never did that, I just pointed out that the Sun exists to deliver to a different market than the times and that the real kickbacks for the people with the most control come from the power conferred by the position rather than immediate fiscal interests. I was thinking more at the level of Murdoch than Wade, there, though - maybe I should have been more clear.

I've already said the editors are not the ones with power over the paper. The powerful figures all have stock options, and often rely on the continued success of the papers for a large percentage of their money - it would be impossible to list how many rely wholly or mostly on that cash, but - with perhaps one or two exceptions - they are not the sort to needlessly throw away money for the sake of an opinion (first rule of business, never let your emotions get in the way of making a profit).

 

[8ball]

This argument is splintering into multiple threads . . .

Point 1) Telegraph sales fell recently but . . . never mind, I wasn't saying they don't make money, just that they confer power on their owners way beyond that which comes with just being rich . Blair doesn't hang with these idiots to safeguard the jobs of their workers, this is about power and influence, and trying to ensure the paper is backing him rather than the other guy. Blair is complicit in that the Sun could easily be brought up on incitement to racial haterd charges on recent (and less recent) performances, but he knows who's wearing the trousers and doesn't have the balls to take them on.

Point 2) I mentioned 'editorial' referring to those little rabid rcist rants in the Sun and you banged on about editors, overall policy, advertisers and how mcuh you know about newspapers for a bit. I was just trying to set straight what I was referring to in case there was confusion.

Point 3) The Sun is still run by a cabal of wankers. Advertisers put ads in because people read it. They're in the business of delivering an audience to advertisers. Maybe we should blame the advertisers more for their complicity. It doesn't change the fact that it's run by a bunch of cunts.

 

[Rob Ray]

1) Sales have no bearing on profit atm (might do in the long term but that's another issue) every major paper bar the Times, Daily Mail and ocassionally Telegraph have falling sales, but they all have rising profits. Don't conflate the desires of a politician to get in the news with the desires of businessmen to make profit. Murdoch will support Blair for as long as it improves his economic outlook, no longer.

2) Yes but you were trying to make out that editorials in some way different from overall policy. They're not.

3) Yes it's run by a bunch of cunts, so is every other company in the entire country. Welcome to the world of big business. That has nothing to do with the views of the readership as a whole.

 

[8ball]

1) Fair point and well made. My point was simply that Murdoch wouldn't be in such a position if he was selling peas.

2) I'm not sure the rabid editorials really reflect the overall policy of what gets included in the Sun. I imagine it would read even more like a BNP recruiting pamphlet if that were the case. I think they are there for a minority of readers.

3) Not sure I'd lump every other company in the country with those tossers.

 

[Rob Ray]

1) True enough, there are extra powers associated with the major media moguls, but media companies, due to their reliance on outside monetary input, are no more able to buck the trends of general industry than anyone else. It used to be the case a long time ago (and sometimes still is when companies are still owned by single parties - Conrad Black for example) that individual owners used to use their positions to push an ideology they liked, but with the rise of the boardroom has come the demise of such independence in root editorial policy.

2) That's simply the way newspapers operate, do it myself in Freedom newspaper (anarchist fortnightly I help edit outside work). You present the facts in the news in a less biased way (ideally as unbiased as possible), the comment is where you let rip. In theory you build trust with the former, indoctrinate with the latter. People have the ability to agree with the editorial or not, thus making it a free choice, but it is undeniably the overall view of the paper and if you look carefully there will be clues in the phraseology used in the main articles, the positioning and prominence of the various protagonists, and the overall structuring.

3) There's degrees of cuntness, I'll admit, but I've yet to come across a company which doesn't do its best to cut corners wherever possible, usually at the workers' expense (Bodyshop for example with its union-busting at its Soapworks plant) and market products with built-in obsolecence.

 

[8ball]

1) Not sure about this - I think the advertisers will be happy to be advertised in a paper with a variety of editorial lines so long as the punters are sucking it up. Your posts imply that I hold Sun readers in contempt, I don't think I can compete with the people who produce it in this regard.

2) "In theory you build trust with the former, indoctrinate with the latter." - I'd agree with that part. When I first mentioned editorials though, your response implied I meant overall editorial policy (what goes in the paper, how things are presented etc.). I don't deny the two are related, however Sun editorials are particularly galling in their 'I'm not a racist, but' tone. The rest of the paper can be scanned over without this really occurring to you - this nasty 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink' stuff is almost exclusive to the editorial, though the rest of the paper is nasty in it's own special way. I don't want to go looking in the rag for examples, the thought is making me feel nauseous already.

3) Um, yeah. Lots of tossers about. Doesn't make me feel any more charitable to these particular ones, though.

 

[Pickman's model]

Well I AM working class unless you're one of those people who reckon going to Uni magically conveys middle-class status. My taste in music is often up for debate.

confers? conveys is quite different.

 

[8ball]

Um, yeah.

Wot I said.

 

[Rob Ray]

1) You'd be surprised. I've been told to cut all bad comments out of a motoring review before now because the company selling the car had bought a half page of advertising. There's little concrete difference between that and, for example, a huge multinational who use a great deal of 'illegal' immigrant labour to undercut indigenous wages quietly hinting that they wouldn't be unhappy if the Sun campaigned to keep it illegal, and indeed promote the divide between Them and Us to avoid any pesky do-gooders trying to change the situation.

2) Well yes, Sun editorials are always going to be a bit more vicious and 'nudge nudge', for the reasons I explained earlier. It makes them more repulsive, but not something particularly seperate from the rest of the content. They'll often be written by the same journalists who write the stories in the first place.

 

[8ball]

1) You'd be surprised. I've been told to cut all bad comments out of a motoring review before now because the company selling the car had bought a half page of advertising.

I'll assume that's not the anarchist fortnightly you're talking about
Disappointing and dodgy but not too surprising.
As for your second example, this is kind of where I was going with the earlier argument about papers like this serving to distract and gently nudge the masses away from the political realm. No one wants a bunch of plebs upsetting the apple cart - it's more a matter a reciprocal backscratching than some giant conspiracy. And I still think there are plenty in political circles who'll rubbish anyone who suggests any real democracy by saying things like 'You want Joe Public running the place - Joe Public reads the Sun'.

2) Well yes, Sun editorials are always going to be a bit more vicious and 'nudge nudge', for the reasons I explained earlier. It makes them more repulsive, but not something particularly seperate from the rest of the content. They'll often be written by the same journalists who write the stories in the first place.

The same journalists
I always thought they had a special 'gimp' in a box that they let out just to write the editorials . . .

 

[Rob Ray]

As for your second example, this is kind of where I was going with the earlier argument about papers like this serving to distract and gently nudge the masses away from the political realm. No one wants a bunch of plebs upsetting the apple cart - it's more a matter a reciprocal backscratching than some giant conspiracy.

I agree that papers have an agenda to misinform and lead the public, it's only their reasoning and impetus that's different - directly serving the corporations, rather than working independently alongside them. It's not a conspiracy, unless you count the openly acknowledged workings of the market as such, it's just part and parcel of how capital works in relation to the media.

And I still think there are plenty in political circles who'll rubbish anyone who suggests any real democracy by saying things like 'You want Joe Public running the place - Joe Public reads the Sun'.

Yeah there almost certainly are, and I'd disagree with them, because there's no such thing as a single Joe Public, and there's certainly no such thing as a single mass of Sun readers repeating every word it says verbatim, just as Times readers are sometimes far more left wing than the paper they read.