[repolfx]

This sort of thing is why newspapers are going to die and good riddance.

Yes the MMR scare was bad reporting of bad science. But this:

Brexit is a more complicated topic, but it's worth pointing out that it occurs after a decades long smear campaign by much of the UK media against the EU.

... is just laughable. What you mean is that the UK media, rather unusually for Europe, actually digs up dirt and reports negative stories about the EU. You know, holding government to account, one of the primary functions of journalism.

I've noticed lots of people in the rest of Europe like to describe the UK media this way. I find it rather pathetic. Even the head of the EU Parliament after the Brexit vote explained it by saying the people had been "brainwashed" by the media.

The only reason it feels to them like the UK press runs a smear campaign against the EU, is that supine and useless European newspapers are all ideologically in bed with it and refuse to publish negative stories at all. I read the German press sometimes and any article that at first may appear to be criticising the EU invariably is actually criticising national governments, often with an explicit or implied appeal to the EU to bring the elected governments into line. EU supporters have got used to dog-like loyalty from the press and act shocked when they read genuine, hard hitting criticism in British newspapers.

[pjc50]

No, the UK press is disastrously bad about reporting the EU, to the extent that the EU has its own huge rebuttals index: https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

The rightwing UK press is extremely selective about what negative news it reports about whom. It could and should be savaging the UK government for its lack of Brexit planning but instead it's running articles labelling judges as "TRAITORS".

[repolfx]

I'm aware of the EU's "myths" index. It's a joke. Most of them aren't even rebuttals because they admit the stories are true. They're just blog posts defending their own position.

Just scanning down the list for some recent examples, here's one from 2015:

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/the-european-developmen...

It says:

In a drive to have a go at the EU, on 20 July some UK newspapers (Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail) chose to ridicule circus artists and coconut production

It then goes on to admit that the EU does fund trapeze and sewing courses in Tanzania, but "elaborate metaphors and frivolous choice of visuals aside, mastering – to quote the articles – “the art of the trapeze” can open job opportunities for a person in Tanzania (by the way, the same project also provides courses in carpentry and sewing)."

So this "myth" is in reality not a myth at all, the reports were true. The Commission also managed to totally miss the point of the stories, namely, why is the EU spending money on trapeze courses in Tanzania during a time when its member governments are cutting back on healthcare and welfare to their own people? Instead it posts a pretentious blog post in which it redefines facts as "myths" and shits on journalists doing one of the things journalists are meant to do: asking hard questions about government spending.

Here's another true "myth"

https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/eu-funds-do-not-favour-...

"It appears the press are just as keen on recycling as the Commission. The claim that British taxpayers are subsidising bullfighting in Spain was published in The Daily Mail and Daily Mirror recently, some 18 months after a strangely similar story appeared in The Daily Telegraph in May 2013."

But indeed, the claim the papers made is once again completely true and the EU doesn't deny it. Instead it simply claims that under the EU's own agriculture subsidy rules they don't specify what the subsidies are used for, and so if Spanish farmers choose to use the subsidies to rear bulls for bullfighting that's got nothing to do with them. Except that, you know, they pay for it.

If the EU wants to tackle bad reporting about its own operations in the press, then it needs to stick to cases where the press were actually wrong. It surely does happen. Instead it published a blog that boils down to a big pile of tetchyness, evasion, and slippery use of language - all paid for by the taxpayer. You get the overwhelming impression the EU really doesn't get that an aggressive press is a part of democracy; they see it as an opponent to be defeated.