For the last month we have been working with Avaaz to track the election coverage of the right wing press: the Times, Telegraph, Sun and Mail. The picture that emerges, particularly with the Sun and the Mail, is essentially a media machine entirely in lock step with Conservative HQ. Their attacks are the same, their language is the same, their soundbites, their heroes, their villains, the lot. When one changes tactics, so does the other. It gives an entirely warped view of the real choices on offer to voters.
I should say, firstly, how surprisingly good the Times has been. A Murdoch paper, and yet seemingly the most balanced and fair of the four - it has published some great pieces from unexpected angles. Even the Mail, in the shape of Peter Hitchens - much maligned on the left - has delivered some honest, sharp and refreshing perspectives. As for the general quality of the four papers, however, Hitchens probably said it best in his Sunday column. Why have the press made so little of Tebbit's remarks that in Scotland Tory voters should vote Labour? Because of the:
"squeaking multitudes of political journalists who... have settled on a line about what this election is about and are reading from a script given to them by the government spin doctors on whom they depend so much."
