{"id":102360,"date":"2017-04-24T08:41:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T08:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk?p=102360&preview=true&preview_id=102360"},"modified":"2017-04-24T08:47:10","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T08:47:10","slug":"is-it-possible-to-have-no-political-bias-and-to-remain-engaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/is-it-possible-to-have-no-political-bias-and-to-remain-engaging\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it possible to have no political bias and to remain engaging?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With seven weeks to go before Theresa May\u2019s snap election, newspapers, brands and high profile influencers are all pinning their badges of allegiance to various political parties and ideals \u2013 with the exception of one (or two if you include the BBC). <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The i newspaper has pledged via an eight point manifesto<\/a>\u00a0to refuse to endorse any political party in the run up to the election but insists it won\u2019t follow \u201cbland BBC neutrality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Oliver Duff, The i\u2019s editor, attacks his industry peers in his first manifesto pledge by saying: \u201cTelling readers what to think is a media anachronism. We don\u2019t have an axe to grind: i is unique among UK national newspapers in refusing to endorse a party. This does not mean bland BBC neutrality, or that every single page will be meticulously balanced to the point of tedium. It means we will approach stories and people fairly. This is consistent with our stance in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, 2015 general election and 2016 Brexit referendum, when our coverage received a positive response from readers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duff continued: \u201cBritain\u2019s future won\u2019t be decided by editors, media owners or big political donors, but by you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question is, is it ever possible to be 100% neutral?<\/p>\n

Some would argue that in order to be completely neutral you would have to give equal coverage to all the political voices (impossible in the limited space of print product).<\/p>\n

Indeed, the manifesto only comments on the political ambitions of one party.<\/p>\n

Point six of the manifesto highlights the point: \u201cMrs May wants to win a mandate for many changes, likely to include a cut to Britain\u2019s foreign aid budget, an end to the pensions triple lock, an end to the tax lock and the creation of new grammar schools, for starters. Our coverage will reflect that variety.\u201d<\/p>\n

While not commenting or offering any direct opinion on these topics, you could argue that The i\u2019s \u201cliberally-minded\u201d readership will understand what the newspaper\u2019s editorial policy thinks about May\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n

The political positioning of the nation\u2019s newspapers should also inform PR professionals about opportunities and threats to their clients\u2019 businesses and the media opportunities they wish to pursue. In this respect, can a PR pro ever be completely neutral or must they take on (or at the very least give lip service to) the views of their client?<\/p>\n

The other alternative is to abide by \u201cdinner party rules\u201d and just not speak about politics \u2013 a luxury a national newspaper does not have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Journalists, editors and executives at major newspaper publishers like Trinity Mirror will be painfully aware of the fact that nobody in indispensable. This, at times, cruel truth was highlighted recently when the Trinity culled a number of editors\u2019 posts from their Local World regional titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":102366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7272,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102360"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102416,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102360\/revisions\/102416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}