Mental Health Warnings

[poliphilo]

I'm all for freedom of the press, but maybe newspapers ought to come with warnings (printed across the front page in banner headlines) like those that are now mandatory for cigarette packets.

For example:

This paper is owned by tax exiles and contains Conservative party propaganda

or

This paper is written by and for left-wing people living in Islington

or

This paper is howlingly right-wing and once supported Hitler and Oswald Mosley.

or

This paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch (nuff said)

Most of us buy our newspaper for things other than its political bias; we buy it for the footie or the women's page or the arts coverage or the pictures of celebs- but the bias comes attached- like a virus- and- unless we're extremely self-aware- it'll infect us. I think we should be alerted to the risks we run.

Comments

[matrixmann]

Don't know how much that is an issue on the island, but in German journalism it seems like "Fuck, how dare you!!" - lots of talking of the great newspapers about (paid) Putin trolls, only that the blogsphere which speaks it out the most doesn't seem to have gotten richer of it and they seem to be way better doing their journalistic homework than the established ones (talking about the several hoax sightings of Russian tanks which through a simple picture search that even Google offers turn out to be made during the last conflict with Gruziya).