There has been speculation that by attacking Cummings for his lock-down breach, papers like the Times, The Express, and The Sun are deserting Boris Johnson, possibly in favour of Micheal Gove, who has kept a low profile throughout this scandal. Whilst Gove is obviously biding his time to eventually become party leader, as exemplified by his bid to replace Cameron in 2016, I think it unlikely that it’s the reason behind the Boris-friendly press turning on his top man.
While it is interesting that the Murdoch press are all going in for Cummings, one has to remember that papers are businesses, and take care of themselves above all else. Papers like these support conservative governments firstly to maintain policies that benefit them (i.e- low taxes), and also to appeal to their base. The mail, sun. telegraph, etc have all pinned their banners to the Churchillian 'blitz spirit' idea of law and order in a national crisis. Their shaming of 'rule breakers' has been their bread and butter for two months, enthusiastically consumed by their readership.
Whilst, obviously, newspapers are capable of greater hypocrisy than it would take to come out and back Cummings, the reason they haven't is because print-media has been one of the hardest hit industries of the lock-down. The public have stopped buying physical papers almost entirely and for online information there has been a huge spike in attention paid to the BBC, as they are essentially the governments mouthpiece in times of crisis and national events. I think the right-wing press are focusing on maintaining loyalty from their readers above supporting their preferred government, given the next election is 4 years away and Corbyn has now been seen off.
The editors of these papers realize that in order to maintain the faith of their readership they need to be consistent on their only message of the past two months- that obedience to the lock-down is patriotism.
Kommentare