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Originally Posted by Theodoric
I would beg to differ on this. I've just re-read yesterday's article. On my reading, it was mainly a factual account, peppered with a few mildly sarcastic comments. It didn't support the visit, but it definitely didn't encourage protests.
Para 1 said "controversial visit". This is factually correct.
Para 2 said "700-strong entourage worthy of a travelling medieval monarch" in the middle of a factual description of his arrival.
Para 3 said "With up to 100,000 anti-war protestors planning . . . Downing Street maintained a stiff upper lip". A reasonable guess. The rest of para was neutral and was only supportive in that terms such as "renta-mob" were not used.
The next 10 or so paras reported, without any slant, comments made by British and US government spokesmen, discussed the Gaurdian poll that showed pro-American support and discussed possible topics for the Blair-Bush talks; again all factual matters, all presented in an unbiassed fashion.
There was a paragraph discussing the probable make-up of the protestors and a statement from Ken Livingstone calling for any protests to be kept peaceful and warning about the costs.
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Journalistic turns-of-phrase like 'up to' can be used to justify the wild inflation of guestimate figures, as in 'up to 100,000'. Phrases like 'medieval monarch' speak volumes and as for 'controversial' - well, I think this is an attempt at a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's only controversial because the agenda-setters tell us it is so.
What is telling is not so much the number of instances of comment of this kind in the article, but where they appear. As you have shown, they are in pars 1, 2 and 3. This is where any journalist deploys what he considers to be his biggest punches.