Anecdotal evidence says yes, yes and thrice yes, but one self-confessed liberal documentary filmmaker has gone for empirical evidence (and a a cheap and derivative film topic), by confining himself entirely for 28 days to reading the Daily Mail – sample news item this morning:
Why blue-eyed boys (and girls) are so brilliant
The colour of your eyes could determine your achievements in life, say scientists. They claim those with blue eyes are more likely to sparkle academically than those with brown. They are more intelligent and gain more qualifications because they study more effectively and perform better in exams…
– as his sole media and news source and seeing what happened. I think we can guess…
Four weeks isn’t long though and it meant actually giving money to buy the paper too.
If he’d really wanted evidence he could’ve gone to any B&Q on any Sunday morning (because Mail readers’re forever reinforcing their personal fortresses) and listened in to the customers, who’ve been reading it as their sole source of news for twenty years or more. “…immigrants, blah, bloody women, blah, political correctness, blah, Moslems, blah, Britney Spears, blah, kids today, blah…” Or you could just watch any recent edition of BBC’s former flagship news show Panorama, as revamped and Mailised by Jeremy Vine.
Still, it might be an interesting programme. Or not. The Daily Mail Diet will be on Al Gore’s Current TV on Wednesday and will be youtubed or bittorrented at some point with luck.
