I won't go into all the arguments for the Tweedeledum of the Daily Mail (patriotic and good on heritage) and theTweedle Dee of The Guardian (environmentalist and good on social justice) which went on interminably in the Film Fan thread. I would just say that their good points are overwhelmingly ourweighed by the bad. Both are deplorable.
The Daily Mail panders to the prejudices of the rank and file right wing supporter and The Guardian to the prejudices of the rank and file left wing supporter. People obviously object to one or the other according to their own prejudices. This is not as harmless as it sounds. They both work as "agencies of reinforcement" - day after day you read the stories that feed your own bias. I would suggest that this is true of other British newspapers as well. The only British national newspaper I respect is The Telegraph. Its news stories are kept as free of bias as possible, the writing is of a high standard and I believe there are standards it keeps to. .Its comment pages are as biased as any other but since my inclinations tend toward Labour it is good to read some Tory opinions.
It has been suggested that if you do not like the Daily Mail you should not read it. Perhaps it is left wingers who should read The Mail and right wingers who should read The Guardian. Unfortunately British newspaper owners buy a newspaper as a mouthpeice for their opinions rather than for commercial reasons.
The problem is that the important British newspapers are national. That way they can divide up to appeal to people's prejudices. In America (with the excepotion of New York) it is different. People have a caricature of the average Daily Mail reader or the average Guardian reader which through the reinforcement of day after day bias is too often true. You cannot imagine the average Boston Herald or San Jose Chronicle reader. They go out of their way to give differing points of view in a way that would be quite foreign ro British newspapers.
For me the best newspaper I have come across is The Washington Post. Because of the special nature of its audience its coverage of foreign affairs is superb (a weakness in some American newspapers). What is more its comment pages have two section "Left Leaning Opinions" "Right Leaning Opinions".
There are those on both sides who are certain that the views of their paper on immigration, Europe, asylum seekiers, the Bill Of Rights, The Middle East, the riots and electoral reform are right and the other side wrong I would give a note of caution: nobody ever understands the period they are living in. If History proves you only got 49% wrong you are doing well.
Because this is a long post and I have done other long posts on it before I will make this my only post on this thread ending with with seven words "Aren't we lucky to have the BBC".
