The media and the cuts: Dirty tricks in Swansea

No one expects the commercial press to be sympathetic towards the anti-cuts movement. Most British newspapers take it for granted that cuts are necessary and that working people have to suffer in the name of fiscal rectitude. Nevertheless, it is becoming clear that coverage of the anti-cuts movement is more distorted in some publications than in others.

Although national newspapers such as the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail are never less than scornful in their attitude towards the resistance, they usually report the facts about strikes, marches and demonstrations with at least a modicum of objectivity.The same cannot be said about many local newspapers. Aware that their work is rarely exposed to rigorous political scrutiny, regional journalists have done more than anyone else to mislead the public about the struggle against the cuts.

An especially shocking example of political bias has just appeared in the South Wales Evening Post. On Thursday 30th June the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) organised a well-attended rally in Castle Square in Swansea in support of the co-ordinated strikes in the public sector. In his front-page coverage of the rally on 1st July, Rob Goodman of the Post employed every trick in the book to convey the impression that it had been a miserable failure. His article is worth examining because it typifies the work of regional journalists across the country.