Don't Believe Everything You Read

I had a grumpy old man moment on the 10 this morning. I picked up a Metro from a vacant seat and started reading all about Alistair Darling's super exciting budget speech. A few seconds later I threw it down in anger. I'm not an economist, I don't know how to reverse a recession, but I do know how to write a factual, unbiased report to inform Average Joe about the world. This morning's Metro however, read more like the Daily Mail than the cheap (read 'free') and cheerful paper that usually lines the bus aisle.

What got to me were the comments on Gordon Brown's facial expressions during Mr. Darling's speech. The Metro seems to find it unacceptable that the Prime Minister should scratch his eyebrow, or chew his fingernails while his chancellor delivers a doom and gloom speech. They chose a picture that seemed to show him nodding off and declared "the shame of it". The same article accused Mr. Brown of "bamboozling" taxpayers and chose some of David Cameron's more sensational statements and huge sums dreamed up by number crunchers with nothing better to do to back themselves up. OK, Metro, how about instead of jumping on the Brown-baiting band wagon, you give us the news? I don't place bitching in the same category as reporting.

I'm not ashamed that Mr. Brown got a bit bored listening to Mr. Darling - whenever somebody says "recession", I switch off. Announcing that every man, woman and child in Britain is £23,000 in debt doesn't phase me either - by the time I graduate I will owe the best part of £25,000 to various places, including the government and the banks. Every homeowner, every credit card holder, in the country is in debt. And as for David Cameron's statement about how we will be clawing our way out of poverty for the next ten years because of the recession (which, incidentally, is not entirely Gordon Brown's fault) - I was raised in a ex-mining town that hasn't known the meaning (or spelling) of 'prosperity' since dear Thatcher ripped out any heart it had, so I don't think an smarmy Etonian can really inform me much about poverty.

What frightens me about reading this article in the Metro is that it's a free paper that normal people read on the way to work or school. I consider myself an intelligent person who isn't too easily led: I know how to choose the people who represent me in parliament, and I know even more about how to look after my bank balance. However, for those who only read the headlines, or those who believe whatever the papers say, it paints a one-sided, Hellish picture of Mr. Brown as a cocky thief. I would say that they only wrote this article to sell papers - but the Metro is free! This is scare-mongering for the sake of it. The article read like something out of the Daily Mail, and the sources were chosen specifically for their shock factor. I've been taught to read between the lines - but what about those who don't?

This is not isolated of course, nor is it a recent phenomenon, but I still finding it frightening. Who informs us if not the newspapers? And if we are uninformed, how can we choose the right government to help us?