Denzil McDaniel: Who sets the agenda for what people want, what they really really want?

The Australian media magnate didn’t like the outgoing Prime Minister, John Major who planned to regulate his business, so the Sun had switched its traditional allegiance to endorse Labour; a documentary years later saw Sun executives admit to a deliberate campaign of vilification of Major’s Tories with a steady stream of stories about the personal lives of his MPs.

Tory sleaze was the backdrop to the election, and with three million copies of the Sun dripping its poison every day into its 10 million readers, it had a major impact.

One of Blair’s concessions in his “dance with the devil” as Neil Kinnock described it, was to commit Labour to a referendum on not entering the monetary Euro. Britain always had an undercurrent of Euroscepticism, but was considered a minority; but this was the beginning of a journey which would lead almost 20 years later to the Brexit referendum.

This poll, too, saw British newspapers set the tone.

A survey by King’s College, London showed that in the 10 weeks leading up to the Brexit vote, 99 various newspaper front pages featured negative stories about immigrants, especially Turks and Albanians, but also Romanians and Poles. In an increasingly acrimonious debate, where the other most common story was about the economy, both leave and remain camps accused each other of “Project fear".

A former editor of The Sun, David Yelland, says that “without Rupert there would be no Brexit".

None of us would ever admit to being “played” and I suppose we will never know exactly how many voters were influenced by the divisive media coverage.

Indeed, it would be considered insulting to many people to suggest they sheepishly aligned with the subliminal messaging of a right-wing press largely owned by rich media barons. At the end of the day, the British people (or at least the English people) weren’t coerced into voting for Brexit and were entitled to their democratic mandate.

But still, the media plays a major role in the agenda and mood music approaching an election.

Interestingly, a young person told me recently that she began listening to Stephen Nolan on Radio Five Live at weekend nights about ten years ago when Nolan had already forged a reputation for a very good news programme. But, she said, every weekend it seemed he had one “mouthy” guest on ….a certain Nigel Farage.

It may be stretching it to accuse Nolan of assisting in the rise of UKIP and its influence on the Tories and Brexit; but there’s no doubt that Nolan gave him quite a platform on Five Live. Farage is no mug; he doesn’t let repeated failure at the ballot box get in the way of having a major influence on British society.

Rather, his instincts hone in on people’s fears and prejudice and he uses the media to promote his brand of populism. It may not gain him votes, but it unnerves the Tory right who move further to his agenda.

There are shades of this in Northern Ireland today. Nolan, who boasts the “biggest show in the country”, is a Marmite figure but any personal criticism of him is facile and misses the point. Which is the imbalance in his show in political discourse which gives a grotesquely disproportionate time to certain voices such as Jim Allister and Jamie Bryson. Not that BBC NI will respond to requests for statistics.

Let me be clear, their voices should be heard. All voices should.

But in the rush to controversy the Nolan Show is guilty of focusing too much on the binary aged-old issues of division. A ratings winner maybe, but there are plenty of critics too who are frustrated that the politics of fear dominate in an unhealthy way.

BBC management, apparently oblivious to this and to their responsibility not to allow the loudest and most strident voices overshadow other issues. Actually, I’m aware there is plenty of unease among their own staff, but they won’t speak openly about it.

Coming up to an election, the question is do shows like Nolan reflect the issues people at large feel are important, or do they indeed even influence the issues being debated in a negative way?

Generally, there is a plurality of media in Northern Ireland and between them wider issues are discussed. Our media is better than most, probably more ethical than Britain and better than the United States where the founder of Fox News, Roger Ailes admitted that they’d “created a political machine masquerading as a news channel".

We haven’t reached that stage here yet.

I remember reading a quote from Jon Williams, managing director of news and current affairs on RTE, who said: “Journalism’s job is to describe the world, not change it."

An old-fashioned ideal perhaps because the line between fact-based impartiality and pushing an opinion in the media is more blurred than ever. We get former DUP leader Arlene Foster as a presenter on GB News interviewing current leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and describing the BBC as his “opponent”. And is Jamie Bryson a journalist, a commentator or a political activist?

Viewpoints from journalist commentators proliferate and political activists are given space for opinion and analysis.

All perfectly legitimate perhaps, but the media battle to control the narrative is more nuanced and complicated than ever. They are, in a sense still “describing the world” but they’re doing it from their own perspective.

Some years ago, an experiment in psychology saw researchers show videos to two groups; one American the other Japanese, and they were then asked for their observations.

The Americans focused on seeing fish, with pink dots and white bellies. The Japanese saw much more; a stream, green water, plants and shells…..and beautiful fish. The westerners, it seems, are much more short-term and that is one of the issues in short-cycle elections where the parties have to persuade voters.

At election time in Northern Ireland, we just see the fish, or in other words the Protocol, fear of losing identity, and the usual short-term anxieties about the other side.

But there are signs that people are looking at wider issues; despite an apparent obsession with the Protocol and what some are calling a “ratcheting up” of protest, a recent opinion poll by the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool with the Irish News showed than only one in ten Unionists said it was their biggest issue.

Generally, the old constitutional issue, with flags and all the rest, seem less important to many….certainly the younger generation.

It will, of course, still be a major factor.

But the Institute’s director, Professor Peter Shirlow says the Protestant community are now more secularised and liberal then ever, that they don’t stand together just because they’re Protestants and he adds: “Those who support the union need to become more cognitive, more thoughtful – I’m not going to turn up and vote, as my parents did, for someone who does nothing for me, and who doesn’t represent my values.”

Furthermore, it appears that there is continued movement to the middle ground in addition to the high numbers who are disillusioned and don’t vote at all, the “electorally homeless” as Peter Shirlow called them.

Whoever dictates the agenda for this election, parties with vested interest in the short-term or some media outlet, perhaps this election could see more and more people taking their courage and their ballot paper in their hands and voting for the things that are important to themselves.

It’s a chance for voters to tell the politicians what they want, what they really really want.

But will they take it?