Right-wing media watch: Cartoon backlash dominates the news cycle, while Farage evades scrutiny
While newspapers eagerly amplified every angle of the Polanski controversy, there was notably less interest in stories involving Nigel Farage.
The run-up to the local elections delivered a depressingly familiar spectacle of the right-wing press firing on all cylinders against its chosen political enemies.
Unsurprisingly, Zack Polanski was at the centre of the storm.
The row stemmed from Polanski reposting criticism of police conduct during the arrest of a man accused of stabbing two Jewish men in Golders Green. Polanski later apologised, admitting he had shared the post in haste.
That should have arguably been the end of it. But instead, the row escalated when the Times faced accusations of fuelling antisemitic sentiment after publishing a cartoon of Zack Polanski by political cartoonist Peter Brookes.
Critics argued that the cartoon did not merely attack Polanski politically but relied on exaggerated visual features long associated with antisemitic caricatures of Jewish people.
In a statement, the Green Party described the cartoon as “deeply irresponsible.”
Many social media users agreed, with comparisons made to the visual propaganda techniques deployed in 1930s Germany under Joseph Goebbels.
What quickly followed were gloating reports about Polanski’s poll ratings being in “free fall” as the Telegraph put it.
Yet while newspapers eagerly amplified every angle of the Polanski controversy, there was notably less interest in stories involving Nigel Farage.
The relative silence around Farage’s reported £5 million backing from British cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne, who is based in Thailand and has donated millions to Reform UK, was striking. So too was the muted coverage of Farage posing alongside far-right activists, including a man previously convicted of assault after storming a Stand Up to Racism meeting at a church.
That double standard is the real story. Some politicians, typically on the left, are subjected to days of outrage, saturation coverage and moral grandstanding for every misstep, while others receive remarkably light scrutiny for serious associations and controversies.
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