Media Lens: When Populism Is Dangerous For Democracy

George Galloway’s stunning victory in last week’s Bradford West by-election afforded a rare opportunity to witness naked imbalance, establishment scorn of any challenges, and blatant anti-Muslim propaganda in the corporate British media.

The excellent News Sniffer website exposed how the Guardian hurriedly fixed political editor Patrick Wintour’s ugly analysis of Galloway’s 10,140 majority win, with a staggering swing of 36 per cent from Labour to the Respect party. Wintour’s shoddy journalism had initially focused on how the constituency’s ‘Muslim immigrant community’ had largely abandoned Labour. The offensive trope of ‘immigrant’ Muslims appeared three times in his piece. And Galloway’s popular call for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, and ‘a fightback against the job crisis’, was disparagingly cast as ‘fundamentalist’.

It was shocking to see such elitist disdain for majority British views and for ‘immigrant’ communities expressed by a senior Guardian journalist. Someone on the newspaper, perhaps spotting the danger of the nation's flagship ‘liberal’ newspaper appearing so illiberal, acted swiftly to hide the evidence. Too late, News Sniffer was on the trail. This is what Wintour wrote:

‘It appeared that the seat's Muslim immigrant community had decamped from Labour en masse to Galloway's fundamentalist call for an immediate British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a fightback against the job crisis.’

This was amended to:

‘It appeared that the seat's Muslim community had decamped from Labour en masse to Galloway's call for an immediate British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a fightback against the job crisis.’

Further key changes are easily visible here.