Ukraine - political / media conspiracy?

[Rev Stickleback]

Originally Posted by Volodmr

I didn't know that BBC was yellow press like Daily Mail.

Thank you for links, they are positive.

Typically it's not, and Panorama certainly has no such reputation (until now).

The "media" who traditionally don't hail from working class backgrounds and aren't traditionally regular supporters, have had a long misconception about the causes of football violence. Despite being repeatedly told it's mainly about young men enjoying the thrill of fighting, they always still look for a bigger picture. Aggressive far right extremism, in their minds, dovetails nicely into the football hooligan mentality, so they look for a link between one and the other. The fact that almost all hooliganism is white on white doesn't seem to have registered. It just makes a far better story.

The Daily Mail, on the other hand, exists to pander to people who think all foreigners are dreadful and we should build a big wall around the British Isles before its too late.

The press are also pretty full of themselves, and overstate their own importance. Virtually every story about the lack of England fans in Ukraine mentioned about how fans had been scared off by the fear of violence, yet the stories came weeks after it was obvious fans weren't going, and probably only had a tiny impact on fan numbers.

There's a country some of which citizens don't like both Poland and Ukraine, with some of its rich citizens (who can pay for everything) living in London. It's just a theory, not even a conspiracy, I don't want to go too far. If BBC is so "yellow" these days, then this means that this theory should be dropped.

We have a free press, but not necessarily a responsible one.

As a rule of thumb the tabloids should be taken with a pinch of salt, while the broadsheet papers take more of a balanced view.

News programmes on tv generally have a reliable reputation. Current affairs programmes often have a slant.

Well, I'm not talking about "conspiracy". There's no need for all articles to be paid as most journalists simply copy each other. BBC had its footage. Sky Sports had its footage. Both could be paid, or could simply be "yellow", who knows? That was enough for British journalists to continue.

The footage itself was genuine, but like many things, if you go looking for a particular problem, you are likely to find it if you know where to look. If you wanted to test the idea that England is full of aggressive xenophobic people, you could easily interview some English Defence League members and get a show full of material. You could prove such people do exist in England. Whether you'd choose to present those people as typical, or a threat to people maybe coming over for the Olympics, is an entirely different matter.