Brexit revealed to be turning public off news

Much has been made by both sides of the political divide over what the impact of Brexit will be, should it ever come about, but a new survey by the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute has revealed that it is already having one effect - turning people off following the news.

The survey showed nearly one-third of Britons are consciously avoiding watching or reading the news "due to frustration over the intractable and polarizing nature" of the Brexit process.

Conversely, news websites are recording record levels of traffic from those who do want to stay on top of the political saga which has overtaken the British political process for the last three years.

Commonly cited reasons for the Brexit turn-off are a lack of progress, a sense of exasperation and powerlessness, and a negative impact on people's moods. The last explanation is particularly widespread among supporters of the Remain cause. One of the most common reasons cited by supporters of the Leave cause is that mainstream media cannot be trusted.

However, The Guardian newspaper said it had been told by a BBC source that on the day of the first meaningful vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plans in January, the BBC News website recorded 28 million visits, with a further 25 million the following day when May faced a no-confidence vote.

Although Brexit may have accelerated things in the United Kingdom, news avoidance is not an exclusively British issue.

"It may be because the world has become a more depressing place or because the media coverage tends to be relentlessly negative, or a mix of the two," Nic Newman, a senior research associate at the Reuters Institute, told The Financial Times.

Katie Vanneck-Smith, publisher of the self-proclaimed "slow news" outlet Tortoise, said: "People are desperately crying out for positivity. They are not finding solutions in any Brexit coverage."

julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily 06/14/2019 page12)