Newspapers as well as politicians can influence how it develops

Newspapers, as well as politicians, can influence how it develops. It is time to be careful.Happy 10th birthday to Radio 5, and congratulations to Julian Worricker for two morning phone-ins – one on Muslims in Britain after the arrests; another on immigration after Bev’s resignation. That can be done all too easily through the language used by some newspapers, through the emphasis given to certain stories, through connections made.By Friday, The Daily Telegraph leader was asking: “Why should we believe … Muslims and terror attacks; Poles and sex murders; east European drivers and fatal lorry crashes; immigration/asylum policy and dangerous people entering Britain. These are particularly sensitive times, with the fear of a terrorist attack on this country It is no time to encourage feelings of prejudice. This was the serial sex attacker from Poland who had got into Britain, where he had attacked and murdered Katerina Koneva. The report of the conviction and life sentence for Andrezej Kunowski also mentioned the fact that he had had a heart by-pass operation on the NHS.One paper, one day.

All the others carried these stories, with varying degrees of sensationalism and varying degrees of linkage. It is the latter that is of the most immediate concern, because it creates an overall tone which can stick in the public consciousness, particularly if there is an inclination there to make unjustifiable connections.So we had in this one edition of one newspaper a flow of pages, all illustrated with faces, all of them with an underlying xenophobic message. It would be “only a matter of time before an eastern European HGV driver causes a fatal crash in Britain”.Turning on again – same paper, same day – and we had the horrendous story of the “Migrant on the run who killed our innocent angel aged 12″. At the bottom of the same page, under the headline ” ‘Peril’ of the foreign truckers”, we read that British lorry drivers were very concerned about the arrival in this country of drivers from the EU accession states. Unnamed British truckers believed this would “open the floodgates to dangerously unskilled workers”.

It is the one in which the media, or some sections of the press, are involved on which I want to concentrate.It has been one of those weeks in which many news strands have converged We can blame neither the Government nor the media for that. The fates have conspired, although the Government has helped things along. Linkages between stories seemed to be tenuous and even dangerous.The best way to make the point is to take one newspaper and one day – the Daily Express on Thursday. “The evil in our midst” was the page one headline about the arrests of the British Muslims (sic) for questioning in connection with possible terrorist offences. In common with other papers, the Express carried a long interview with the father of one of those arrested, and this was carried across pages four and five. It told of extremist Muslim factions and attempts to influence young Muslims in Britain.Over the page was another spread on the atrocities in Iraq, the murder and display of American contractors “Descent into barbarism” read the headline. Two pages on, we have “The great asylum con trick”, coverage of the immigration row, and the Blair exchanges with Michael Howard in the Commons.