Britain's gutter press plumbs new depths

Britain's gutter press plumbs new depths
Blog: The photo of Aylan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian toddler, made the front page of every major UK newspaper. Will the mainstream media now end its vile, xenophobic anti-immigration rhetoric?
5 min read
03 Sep, 2015
Aylan Kurdi slipped out of his father's hands when their boat began to sink [AFP]
The UK's right-wing press is for once receiving the type of flak it usually reserves for immigrants and refugees.

A picture of a lifeless toddler - three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi - washed up on the shores of Turkey was enough to finally tug at the heartstrings of the British public.

The image was shared widely online on Wednesday, with social media users driven by anger and disgust at this uncaring world.

The response from the public was enough that every major newspaper in the UK made it their front page story on Thursday.

Front page news

There is a wider tragedy of Europe's unethical handling of the most recent refugee crisis. But was this new focus of Britain's tabloids a human act of comradeship with the three-year-old who drowned in the Aegean Sea?
Refugees rarely elicit much sympathy from Britain's right wing,
such as this Tweet from a UKIP parliamentary candidate

The answer from from the public appeared to be a resounding "no".

The Sun
and The Daily Mail are two news titles particularly notorious for their strong stance towards immigration.

They have hired controversial columnists who know how to touch the raw nerves of the British public. No issue appears to rile them as much as the "immigration issue".

'Send out the gunships'

Katie Hopkins' notorious opinion piece Rescue boats? I'd use gunships to stop migrants, published 17 April, is just one example.

"No, I don't care. Show me pictures of coffins, show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don't care," she continued.

It was controversial, and Hopkins received some criticism from the public for comments that bordered on genocidal - describing people as "cockroaches" in a manner similar to the descriptions of Tutsis given over a Hutu radio station before the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

But the outrage was fairly muted when compared to the astonishing levels of of abuse migrants receive from the newspaper.

So are the tabloids a reflection of the UK public's attitudes towards immigration, or do they shape British opinion?

Judging from opinion polls published in xenophobic right-wing papers, the UK's anti-immigration sentiment is widespread.

"Immigration is the public's biggest concern, poll says," reported The Daily Mail on 21 August, two days after hundreds of refugees drowned to death trying to cross the Mediterranean.

Liberals try to explain that the public's views towards desperate refugees are different to those of economic migrants. 

However, tabloid reporting about the issue of immigration makes little distinction between economic migrants and refugees who are fleeing for their lives - though few deny that those who flee hunger, disease and poverty are also deserving of our support.

We have to remember that it is the public who breathe life into these newspapers by buying them.

Recent hysterical media coverage of the Calais "jungle camp" is one example.

"New migrant flood on way: Outrage after EU warns Britain to prepare for more foreigners", read the Daily Express headline on 7 June.

Such headlines do reflect public discourse about immigration.

Rarely do you read a life story of a recent immigrant from Syria, for example, of their struggle to reach Europe and that all they want is safety for their families.

Real life

There are plenty of these stories to tell, but instead they choose people such as Abu Hamza al-Masri (known as "the hook-handed preacher of hate" to The Sun readers), as the faces of the UK's asylum seekers.

The Daily Mail has a long history
of anti-immigrant sentiment

It has helped shape our image of refugees, particularly Muslims - a menacing, fearful mob who are only coming here for "our benefits" but who "hate out way of life". 

This couldn't be further from the truth. The thousands of terrified, desperate refugees who board the death boats to Europe are not risking their lives for the paltry amount of benefits they might receive if they reach the UK alive.

Survivors of this nightmare journey have been described as they wait in Calais trying to reach the UK have been described dehumanisingly as "swarms"" by none other than Prime Minister David Cameron.

The truth is that those fleeing war or desperation often speak English as a second language, or they have family here, and so want to contribute to our economy.

Many are doctors, lawyers and scientists - much better educated than the UK's tabloid-reading public.

Desperate act

When The Sun and The Daily Mail editors decided to put the image of the tragic child on their cover, did they want readers to reflect on Aylan's final moments, kicked about and swallowed by the waves that eventually consumed him?

Perhaps they wanted their readers to understand that Europe's immigration rules made it impossible to enter the continent legally, and his family were forced through sure desperation to board that boat?

No. The Sun's editorial inside lead gave us their opinion. 

"Experts on refugee crisis give their view: 'We must help the truly desperate... and get serious in the war against IS,'" it read.

During his three-year life, Aylan was constantly on the run, fleeing cut-throat Islamic State group fighters who emerged in the power vacuum of the Syrian war.

These conditions were set by an aggressive dictator - Bashar al-Assad - who has done everything possible to stay in power.

IS has been aided by cynical tactics by the Syrian regime - tactics that allowed IS to grow in rebel-held areas - and an apathetic international community too selfish to take a united stand.

Around 95 percent of the victims of the Syrian regime's barrel bombs have been civilians, not IS fighters.

In December 2014, for example, 76 percent of deaths in Syria were caused by government forces.

If The Sun wanted to take a serious approach to the issue it might want to highlight that the vast majority of the 250,000 dead of Syria's war have been civilians, at the hands of Assad's air force and army.

With 11 million Syrians homeless, and massive budget cuts hitting NGOs working with refugees, the most humane response to Aylan's death would be to call on Cameron to follow Germany's lead and open the borders.

It is the only way we can stop more babies dying in the unforgiving waters that lie off Europe's shores.

Unfortunately in Britain, today's front page is tomorrow's fish-and-chip wrapping.