Veteran Southport journalist Martin Hovden (pictured) writes: As the dust settles after last week’s general election, time to reflect on what we should do better next time – for the sake of democracy.
As someone who has covered local and national elections here on Merseyside for more than 40 years, it worries me a great deal that political parties (and their supporters) are using social media to spread propaganda, mainly about their opponents – and they’re doing it anonymously.
In my day (from the early 1970s onwards), candidates would use their local newspaper to get their message across. They would submit a Press Release which would then be checked and re-written by a journalist, making sure to follow up any serious negative comments about an opponent and to stress in the story which candidate (or party official) had supplied the information.
Sadly, the playing field is no longer fair.
For this election, I published many stories on our local news websites and my Facebook page during the six-week campaign. As I expected I was accused on many occasions of being biased towards one party or another. That’s the nature of politics these days. During my career I’ve annoyed every single party from the extreme right (National Front) to the hard left (Militant Tendency) – and all those in between. So I must be doing my job properly. You follow the story no matter which party is involved.
But every single time I had something printed it was made absolutely clear I had written it. It was a Martin Hovden story, you knew who to blame if you didn’t like the content.
Social media is a wonderful innovation and I use it all the time. But sadly it lacks the resources or the will to check what is published. As a result, politicians and their supporters have been granted a field day to say what they want, especially about their opponents – and to say it without revealing the source.
I’m all for lively and robust debates during an election – but, please, political parties and their supporters, have the courage, decency and sense of fair play to be open and transparent. If you’ve written or posted something tell us who you are, don’t hide behind your keyboard.
Look what’s happening in America. President Trump is deliberately undermining the Press with his constant accusations of Fake News.
If that trend comes over here and it’s combined with anonymous accusations, the future will be very bleak – and dangerous.
Democracy is worth far more than cheap, snide, misleading, anonymous insults. And it’s worth fighting for.
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