To think that as long as people continue to read the Daily Mail and Express, this country is doomed

[Meadowland]

Written by the rich, who pretend to be concerned for the poor. And the really sad thing is, people believe what they read.

Which newspaper would you suggest we read the OP?

So everyone should only do the things the left say? There’s a name for that

I read all the free online news, fascinating to see how "news reports" are made to fit in with an agenda.
At least the Mail always allows comments, so alternative views can be expressed. Unlike the Guardian.

Along with the Guardian, which doesn't give a fuck about women.

Anyone with half a brain should be getting their news from a wide variety of sources because all have their biases, blind spots and areas in which they simply refuse to go. A good example of this was the Guardian’s denial of the large scale organised sexual assaults by migrants on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve a couple of years ago.

The piousness of many left wing political supporters is both incredibly annoying and amusing

This time amusing

You forgot the Sun.

I would not want a gag on the press. All newspapers hold bias. Just read more widely to counter that bias.

@BeerandBiscuits there are a lot of right-wing commenters on Guardian articles, trust me. And the Independent is even worse. It's like Stormfront at times.

FWIW, I believe in a free press, not a state controlled one. I do boycott the Sun though, because of Hillsborough.

No one represents the average working class person more that Owen Jones

I dip into all of them, and lots of online news sources for balance and to get somewhere near the truth.

And yet freedom of press is imperative to a good country.

An impartial press is one of the pillars of democracy. No chance of proper democracy in the UK with 80% of the press extremely right wing. It is interesting to go another country and see how their newspapers compare. In the couple of countries I have lived and worked in, the newspapers hold much less power and are generally much more balanced (not hard!).

But as pp have said, outside of politics the UK papers can have some positives.

I think anyone who seeks to restrict others choice of information sources is corrupt @Meadowland

What counties are those Rosie ?

It's the whole chicken and egg thing. Are these papers just printing what people feel or are they influencing readers views? The hate and vitriol is just awful though. The Meghan bashing of the Mail is horrendous . The utter biased way of reporting what happened in parliament last week was just awful. I think the country is basically f@@@ed whilst the papers remain so popular but think it's bigger societal issues in the UK that's the driving force behind them. No one is saying ban them but how do you get people to go to a range of news sources and analysis and evaluate what they are being told?

I read it for stupid celeb gossip nothing else

I love the DM

@ermwhatda absolutely. It's much better to have a balanced view on things and by this you near to hear both sides of the story so reading different newspapers is a good way to start.
Also agree about the scum!

YANBU

There is bias and then there's lying. And anyone who thinks we have a free press is an indictment on our education system.

What a dangerous assumption. George Orwell was not wrong about GroupThink. Why do you assume that you think the right way, and everyone else is wrong?

Why does it not occur to you WHY the readership of these publications is so large?

Could it be, that they are not TELLING their readers what to think, but their reports REFLECT what their readers think???? (Media Market Research 101)

Have you never heard of 'the silent majority'? I suggest you take a quick peek at the latest polls for an answer as to why the majority of MPs don't want an election.

• That would be because they would lose.

And Boris would get a majority. Shock, horror!

If The Guardian did not get strong cash injections from The Auto Trader (both in The Pearson Group)

• it would close.

And we must remember which was the programme that had the widest global reach and BY FAR earned the BBC the most money

• that bunch of irreverent public schoolboys, Top Gear

At least the Guardian isn't owned by a millionnaire with a political agenda, like the Sun and the Times. It is owned by a not for profit media Trust.

The Mail and the Express are just full of lies. So many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the benefit system and immigration work thanks to these newspapers: the 'come over here from Europe and claim benefits' view, when migrants of course don't have recourse to funds. It's used to encourage poor communities to vote for a party that flagrantly does not serve their interests financially. You can see the same thing happening with Fox in the US.

The Guardian might be right on, but at least there isn't a cynical manipulation of the truth.

I certainly think a lot of evil has been contributed to a great deal by the Mail and co. Need to please their readership has, imo, been a big contributor to the cruel and wasteful benefit assessment system, wilful misunderstanding about immigration and mistreatment of immigrants, and, of course, Brexit.

And no government would ever do something sensible like drug legalisation while Mail and co have a powerful voice.