As the UK parliamentary election rollercoaster grinds, or rather smashes, to a halt, both the IRJ London and Toronto offices have been chatting about the influx of damning and dooming media reports flooding in.  Speaking to editor over at the American Business Journal, Antonia McGuire, it was interesting to hear that the Canadian press, “made it sound quite catastrophic.” On this side of the pond, reports took a different approach, with some election commentary indicating a hung parliament for a while now.
Aside from the fact that some polling stations were so ill-equipped that valuable potential voters were left queuing in the cold unable to take part, a lot of this entire campaign has appeared to be orchestrated in a manner that I can only describe as, well, ‘British’. Even now, as the process of allegiances, shot calling and blaming plays out, things run along in a rather civilised manner. That is, according to some stories. When people speak of ‘the media’ as one enormous and often sinister monolith, I can’t help but wince. I wonder if it is possible to apply standards and to regulate this force, but also to understand the canyon between tabloids, bias blogging, empty press releases, broadsheet reporting and investigative or ‘free press’ text.
Another great example of the wild scale we see in reporting has to be BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and subsequent major oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. Every angle from the millions upon millions BP will lose, to the wildlife, to offshore development in the future, needs to be picked apart and made sense of and in doing so not every writer will be on the same page. Ultimately, be it the elections, the oil slick or the old ‘cat stuck up a tree’ analogy for a fluffy story, opinion is a tricky visitor to keep out of reporting.

In this recent election, there is as much to be enjoyed by way of media critique, as there is in reading a story to your liking and wholeheartedly believing every word. Whilst sensational reporting is a necessary evil of free speech and the written word – you catch more flies with sugar, after all – ensuring that those words are read knowingly and a full spectrum of reports are available, is surely extremely important. It’s not what we read, it’s how we read it.