jimf

dave_j

It's a question of scale really.
The poster on a site like this might have a few dozen (on a good day) readers on whom to drip their pearls of wisdom in an attempt to persuade one way or another.
On Facebook and it's like you might have a few hundreds if you're not well known and if you are then you'd be in the same league as the tabloids.
And the tabloids with their front pages that baldly proclaim where they stand on issues with an overt wish to influence, not us in this case, but the weak minded political class.
AND then you can dispense with wannabe opinion makers altogether and investigate the opinion itself, the referendum result.
As I've said before many times, people never know what they want until they see what they don't want, it's a recipe that allows the 'don't knows' to cripple the efforts of those that do. It's happened before and it'll likely happen again.

BristolUK

Nothing to do with controversy. The point was about one's regular newspaper, the one people are familiar with and comfortable with and then you see



There's nothing else there, about 95% of it is large lettering, unstinting praise for the PM and the whole thing is stated as fact with no room for any other opinion.

Contrast this with the Guardian which refers to four aspects of the deal and also includes an opinion piece headed
Boris Johnson has a deal. Now MPs must end the agony and vote it through

And people will still talk about agendas and confirmation bias as if newspapers are all the same, promoting only one view.

dbd33

That headline is grossly misleading. All the new deal does is push no deal off for a year.

dave_j

I don't see how this headline can be described as 'misleading'.
The only point that could be argued is whether Boris has 'done his duty', but that would depend on how you'd define duty..
The rest of the headline is straightforward and you either agree with it or you don't.
The lower point headline above states that Boris has 'won a new Brexit deal' and this is true.
The rest of the supplementary headline describes the political class as reckless and this is simply a matter of opinion, and one I happen to agree with.
What the headlines do not do is to make any false statement and then seek to persuade you that it's true.
I humbly suggest that your post can more appropriately be described as misleading than the subject of your ire.

dbd33

The headline suggests that Johnson has achieved a Brexit deal, subject to the support of MPs. In fact, he hasn't, he's achieved an elaborate deferral of the no deal arrangement.

dave_j

Good try, but the headline states "Against all odds, Boris has won a new Brexit deal - ". It then goes on to suggest that MP's may fail to support it.
I see nothing misleading here.
True, If MPs fail to vote for the deal then other events, eg no deal, could happen but the headline makes no comment on this.
I'm led to the conclusion that you've chosen to identify this headline as being 'misleading' because you yourself want to mislead readers into thinking it says what it does not.

Shard

It's clearly misleading because of the morality implied by the word DUTY. Headlines like these mislead and manipulate the public. BoJo has secured a third-rate deal no more no less. Parliament's only duty is to scrutinize it, not as implied, pass it.

mikelincs

You really do have to remembre that the major newpaper owners are all Tory supporters, donors etc. Which is why they have headlines like that, they are feathering their own nests, the same, unfortunately applies to a great extent with the BBC, the government appoint the major players in the BBC, so they tend to toe the line. They do not question any of the Tories in the same way they do Labour politicians, Question Time is loaded with people who will spout the government line, or at least anti labour stories, which is why Nigel Farage appears routinely, but he is unlikely to be on for a while as he has publically stated that the Johnson deal is rubbish.

dbd33

Well, yes, duty isn't appropriate here. If he were to do what's best for the country, the traditional duty of government, he wouldn't be making any sort of deal. Dividing the UK by a border down the middle of the sea is not, by the farthest stretch, the duty of the leader of the UK.

dave_j

I'm sorry, but in attempting to criticise this headline you've adopted an approach that's clearly incorrect.
The newspaper has, itself, adopted a clear position with respect to Brexit and it's headline seeks to back Boris and at the same time harangue MPs into backing him as well. It does this by stating that in some way that he has acted honourably, note use of the word 'duty', and thereby implying that MPs who fail to back him are acting dishonourably. You might disagree with this but it doesn't mislead, the headline's a clear corollary of the newspaper's stance on brexit.
I suspect that your unstated fear is that headlines like this are treated as 'absolute truth' by the weak minded and you seek to protect us from ourselves. I'd suggest that there's a little too much of this about these days.

BristolUK

I don't think one has to be weak minded at all to be persuaded when it's the only thing you read as if there is no alternative.

That old saying about repeat a lie often enough and it gets believed exists for a reason. Tell your readers there's only one sensible/moral/'right' choice using words like duty, surrender and then traitors if you don't go along with it...well it begins to sound like facts.

My mother laps up stuff like the Mail and Express and she's not weak minded at all.

Poorly served by such organs, certainly.

Shard

You're in denial. Ask the DUP if he acted "honourably." He cobbled together a crummy deal in order to (attempt to) force through Brexit by the 31st, that's all. As Bristol said, many will only see the headline, and many more will only remember the headline. Boris = Duty, MPs = "Do yours too." Why do they have to? There's a presumption here that this deal is good and must be passed, and yet, it hasn't even been looked at. A few more hours and we'll be getting the "Parliament let us down BS.".

Novocastrian

You're too kind to Adolf Boris. He brought back a deal which he knew would be rejected by parliament; (May: "No British PM could ever accept a customs border in the Irish Sea") so as to delay progress until after Oct.31st, thereby causing No-Deal.

It's been little reported but it's worth looking up Section 55 of the Cross-Border Trade Act- 2018 as Amended , which states the "It would be unlawful if the UK government entered into an Agreement which resulted in Northern Ireland having a different customs regime to the rest of the UK",

That amendment was tabled by none other than Jakob Rees-Goebels so as to prevent May from agreeing to the above watery customs border when the EU proposed it in the same year.

dave_j

I take your point that where you have limited sources of information then what you come to believe can be strongly influenced by them.
But, this merely clouds the issue.
The statement made was that this headline was misleading.
My argument was that it couldn't be described as misleading because the headline contained opinion not facts.
It doesn't matter whether or not you agree that Boris is honourable in having done his duty because by definition it conveys the opinion of the newspaper. You might not agree with it but that's your opinion.
You might argue that because it appears on the front page of a newspaper then some may take it as fact and I agree with you but that doesn't make it factual.
The introduction of the DUP as evidence that I'm in denial seeks only to cloud the issue more and move the discussion away from the central point. As an aside I'd argue that neither DUP or Sinn Fein have little right to feel aggrieved since their never ending refusal to sit down and thrash out their differences has condemned their constituents to interminable conflict but that should be irrelevant here.