Last Updated on July 4, 2024 by Karl Thompson
The day of general election offers us a great chance to see the explicit political bias of newspapers.
I took the opportunity to simply take some photos of today’s headlines… on the fourth of July 2024….
Some of them are obviously pro-Labour while others are biased towards the Tories. One dirty filth rag is even supporting Reform UK.
Pro-Labour Newspapers
Pro-Labour newspapers include The Mirror and The Guardian as you might expect. The Sun as switched to supporting Labour this election too.
The Sun
The Sun famously claimed ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It‘ back in 1992 when it supported the Torys. However back then it may have had a claim as a hung parliament was predicted. The Sun has mostly supported the Tories, but switched in 1997 to support Blair, then back following Gordon Brown.
This time they are supporting Labour with a football twist. This just about sums up how seriously we take politics these days!
The Mirror
A long term left-wing paper. No surprise here, just a clear positive statement to vote Labour.
The Guardian
More subtle Labour support than with The Mirror. A picture of Starmer with supporters, mention of ‘new age of hope’. O.K. maybe it’s not that subtle lefty bias?
Neutral headlines
Headlines in the Times and Independent are more neutral. However if you read the articles, you might find bias
The Times
The Independent
Pro-Tory Newspapers
The Telegraph and the Express are the only two newspapers which are overtly Tory this election….
The Telegraph
Note nothing positive about the Tories, fearmongering about Labour.
The Express
Nothing specific in here, either…
The Daily Mail
The Daily Hate warns you off voting Reform, no doubt the message inside will be to vote Tory (maybe Lib Dem).
Of course true to its negative hate-spewing form the Mail doesn’t give you positive reasons why you should vote Tory. Instead it focusses on spreading unfounded gossip attempting to badmouth Labour.
What a disgusting piece of filth. The best you can say about the Mail is it’s a good model for how NOT to end up like!
The Daily Star
Not really sure who these guys support, anything but Tory by the looks of it!
Newspapers and Election Coverage 2024 Conclusions…..
I enjoy doing my four yearly photo session of these papers, but newspaper circulation is so very low these days. So this is such an indulgence. More influential will be social media output.
However, the above news sources do feed into our social media feeds, so these biases will still have an influence!
Signposting
This material is most relevant to Media Studies, an option within second year A-level sociology.