Page 232 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

P1: GCV/KAA P2: kaf
0521835356c07.xml Hallin 0 521 83535 6 January 21, 2004 16:24

The Three Models

Table 7.2 Contrasting Stories on Immigration in the British Press

The Daily Telegraph The Guardian
StrawbeatsaveryBritish retreat Be proud to be British, Straw tells left
over race report Do not leave patriotism to the far right,
JACK STRAW yesterday distanced urges home secretary
the Government from a report on Jack Straw, the home secretary, yesterday
“multiculturalism” that provoked blamed lack of patriotism of the political
a furious row over what it means left for allowing modern British identity
to be British. to be seen as “narrow, exclusionary and
The Home Secretary was forced conservative.”
to repudiate key findings of the Mr. Straw declared himself to be
Commission on the Future of proud to be British and insisted he did
Multi-Ethnic Britain, which he not accept the arguments of some on the
launched almost three years ago. liberal left or the nationalist right that
Although the commission is the idea of Britain as a cohesive nation
not a Government body, the Home was dead. The existence of people happy
Office had welcomed its 400-page to be known as “black British or Chinese
report as “a timely contribution” British” demonstrated that “Britishness”
to the debate on race relations. had a future.
But as controversy deepened The modern challenge now, said
over its portrayal of Britishness as Mr. Straw, was to meld the enormous
“racist” and its call for a range of races, accents and attitudes in
“reworking” of British history – as the country into a single shared identity.
disclosed in The Daily Telegraph “This is made even more difficult by the
on Tuesday – both Mr. Straw and way those on the left turned their backs
Downing Street dissociated on the concept of patriotism and left the
themselves from its field to those on the far right,” the home
conclusions. secretary said.

political parallelism. Why such great differences between the British and
North American press? We will look at possible explanations that lie in
the realm of political culture later in the chapter. But the differences in
market structure already mentioned provide one possible explanation.
Just as the competitive national media market in Britain permits seg-
mentation of the market by class, it may also permit segmentation of the
market by political affinity, in a way that the local monopoly markets of
North America (or the much smaller national media market of Ireland)
do not.
Two final points should be made about political parallelism in the
British press. The fact that the newspaper market has reflected political

214