One Dimensional Media: Boris Johnson has 100 backers on PM ballot*
One-Dimensional Man is a book by the late Marxist critical theorist Herbert Marcuse. You don’t need to sign up to his entire argument to grasp that the way official society and media present what is happening in the world tends to exclude dissent and the possibility of alternative perspectives.
Earlier this year a good deal of the media spent time informing us that Liz Truss was destined to be the next Tory leader and that her main rival Rishi Sunak had no chance. The actual vote was 57% to 43% a gap Sunak might have made up had we not had weeks of him being presented as a loser.
I hold no brief for either. My concern is the one-dimensionality of the media. Now that Truss has resigned there is significant support for a General Election rather than yet another unelected Tory leader. The Mirror echoed this on a front page but elsewhere all you will find is pages and pages of articles on which Tory will replace Truss.
The media is eating itself however when the BBC, Sky and Reuters all reported that according to a ‘source’ Johnson had 100 backers to stand in the Tory leadership ballot. The publicly declared number is 43. As with Truss it looks like an effort to promote Johnson as the only possible winner.
To be fair to BBC political correspondent Chris Mason he did note in an analysis piece that Johnson’s relationship with the truth is ‘patchy’. He is being too kind. Johnson faces the Commons Privileges Committee next month on charges most of which relate to lying.
*lie
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