Encouraging the voice of the bully

January 28, 2019

I hadn’t long started as a trainee reporter when the editor had occasion to share this little piece of his weekly newspaper philosophy with me: “We don’t tell our readers what to think, but what they should be thinking about.”

That was simpler to practise in the days of print but in today’s world of social media that could be rewritten as: “We don’t tell people what to think, we just try to get them to react.” And that reaction is evoked, or provoked, through clickbait and all its derivations, and it is a magnet for bullies.

And whether by accident or design the tactics used can be shameful, particularly when they use a subtext. This isn’t always down to official policy, in the way you used to know the particular leanings of a newspaper, and the manipulation of the audience can be claimed as unintended, unforeseen; it can also be down to a personal agenda, but surely, in all cases, there should be a responsibility?

The days are long gone when reader reaction was a letter to the editor submitted for consideration, and subject to editing and balance, not just in content but, usually, in the context of the whole page.

Now, reaction is instant, and balance seemingly irrelevant. The key measure is volume and that is what’s valued because it is the income generator. Continuous traffic is the new priority but it is a different beast from circulation, and has a much uglier head because it is opinion driven, and that opinion is shaped simply to generate reaction. It can be a nasty circle.

It is a fact that a horrific crime or terrible tragedy generates that traffic and that can be compared to the exclusive or sensational splash on a front page in the newsagent.

But what if real life’s horrors are in short supply? How do you feed the hungry beast, especially on local, weekly titles where the well of news is much more shallow to draw from?

In the past month or so I’ve been uncomfortable by my local newsfeeds, and shocked at the instant audience reaction in the comments that stack up below them.

Let’s take the story of a council tenant unhappy with his home. That probably wouldn’t normally stir much of a reaction but add that the council tenant is “on benefits” to the story and we’re off.

Over the years certain areas of the media have peddled the idea that those on benefits are scroungers, ne’er-do-wells and parasites on society.

The fact that the benefit system was set up by us for us is now, for many, irrelevant. Benefits are for lazy people, or greedy immigrants, who have money thrown at them from all directions. They are to blame for all our ills.

And so the comment count grew.

As did the blame. Who were they to complain when we had heroic ex-servicemen homeless and begging on the street because of them? This, apparently, is a fact.

Of course there were one or two voices who posted a wider view of government failure, the shame of our housing stock, but they were quickly drowned out. How have we managed to create such a vehement attitude to “scroungers” while there seems to be a lack of interest in the growing number of people who work but still require benefits and foodbanks to survive? And that’s ‘survive’ in its most literal sense.

Then we had someone complaining about the delays encountered in the NHS. Now here was a chance to look at our Government commitment, how the NHS will be resuscitated after Brexit through £350m extra every single week as we were promised, how aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs are rightly or wrongly more of a priority…

Here’s a national issue with local implications, and a good debate guaranteed.

Well, it might have been.

However, the complainant was revealed as someone suffering from substance misuse, and that took the issue down the clickbait cul-de-sac.

From the reactions I was informed that young children right across the UK, terminally ill from cancer, were being deprived of pain-killing medication because funds had to be re-directed to keep those “junkies” happy. This also, apparently, is a fact..

My local paper’s Facebook page recently shared a perfectly good story from the ‘i’ which focused on child poverty in the UK. There was no subtext here in a story that is a national disgrace.

But no, the first comment posted was along the lines of “yet we are being asked to give money to help foreign children...”

It is utterly disgraceful how freedom of speech and freedom of the press have evolved into an excuse for such hatred and vilification of the most vulnerable, but what I find more offensive is that is goes unchecked.

I’m certainly not advocating a Soviet-style curtailing of these freedoms yet it does seem we are devaluing them by allowing them to skirt the edges of inciting hatred or defamation, and where the guise of fact is strengthened by who, or what, shouts loudest.

Only by ensuring balance can these freedoms be protected and I really do believe there is a case that if you cannot, or will not, moderate, then you shouldn’t be providing a platform, at least not a platform built on facts and integrity.

There are enough websites out there, catering for every taste and view; these are badged and the internet equivalent of the top shelf.

But inviting those on the periphery unchecked into the mainstream for the sole aim of generating traffic by encouraging reaction can only seem to be an endorsement of widening the divisions we already have in society. We are promoting the culture of the bully and creating the phenomenon of the collective bully. And by giving it a credible platform, it gains credibility, and strength.

The news isn’t being presented to a mass audience but is moulded by it. And that audience is moulded by those seeking to maximise profit and power.

Hatred does bring rewards, and it is a commodity constantly being  manufactured..

Picture: Geralt