Several right-wing media outlets, including the Scotsman, the Scottish Daily Mail and a far-right Unionist website called the Unity News Network have in recent days picked up on the findings of a newly-published study commissioned by the Scottish Government on young people’s attitudes towards immigration.
To give you a flavour of the Unity News Network, it was most recently seen making a Facebook post that captioned a fascinating colour video of London in 1924 with the words “Before Sadiq Khan, Before Terrorism, Before Acid Attacks, Before Moped Gangs, Before Mass Immigration…. Who wants Britain to go back to that time?”
(Some sample reader replies include: “How wonderful, we want our country back” and “It wasn’t the murder capital of the western world then I wonder why it changed was it a black cloud that descended on it?” For perspective on that claim, London recorded 80 murders in the first six months of 2018, compared to 141 in New York.)
And yet UNN still managed to put the least racist spin on the story.
Because it only headlined its piece with the (accurate) stat that 30% of Scottish teens want immigration reduced. The two supposedly grown-up newspapers both chose to lead with a highly distorted suggestion that “two-thirds” of young Scots were hostile to immigration – something they achieved by adding together the numbers who wanted immigration cut with those who were perfectly content with the current levels.
The Mail went with “a total of 65 per cent are against further growth in the numbers of people moving to the UK”, while the Scotsman’s line was “Almost two-thirds of Scottish teenagers think immigration levels should be cut or remain the same as they are now, according to official research”.
But why would you bracket people wanting no change with people wanting change? There’s no logical justification for doing so, any more than there is for spinning it the other way. The actual figures are:
Keep the current amount of immigration: 35%
Less immigration: 30%
More immigration: 15%
Don’t know: 20%
Most media coverage of polling excludes Don’t Knows, so each of the following is an equally arithmetically-legitimate way to report the findings:
“HALF OF SCOTS TEENS REJECT IMMIGRATION CUTS”
(Because 50% want the same amount or more)
“NEARLY TWO-THIRDS OF SCOTS TEENS REJECT IMMIGRATION CUTS”
(Because the above figure becomes 62.5% if you exclude DKs, and in a media world where 38% is “almost half” that’s definitely close enough to two thirds)
“MOST SCOTS TEENS REJECT IMMIGRATION CUTS”
(Because the “winning” option in the poll is “Keep it the same”)
“ONLY 30% OF SCOTS TEENS WANT IMMIGRATION CUTS”
(Because the other seven in ten didn’t say they did.)
Or to be the most balanced, factual and fair of all, of course, you could simply go with “SCOTS TEENS SPLIT ON IMMIGRATION”.
Readers might therefore justifiably find themselves wondering why the Scotsman and the Mail have decided to use the formulation that makes young Scottish people appear the most anti-immigrant. Because at least with the Unity News Network it’s pretty much out in the open.
