Nigel Farage has sent the international establishment media into a tailspin by telling them that they are wrong on climate change, wrong on immigraion, wrong on radical Islam – and that they need to change.
Appearing in Copenhagen at the News Xchange annual conference for the international broadcast news industry Farage addressed the audience of around 630 journalists from around the world and promptly sent them into a Twitter frenzy by informing them they were out of touch.
The conference, which runs until Thursday, is shrouded in something of a sombre mood following the seismic events of the last few months, which have seen Britain vote to leave the European Union (EU) and the election of Donald Trump as America’s next president.
Picking up on the mood, the perennially jovial Farage joked that the room was like a “funeral”. But the journalists did not share the joke. Some reacted in a sarcastic manner, accusing Farage of hypocrisy, while others accused him of spinning lies:
Others appeared to be completely baffled by his appearance and message, seeking to lecture him in return:
Farage, however, was undeterred. He handed BBC journalist Nick Robinson, who was moderating the session, a file from News-watch criticising thousands of hours of BBC broadcasting over the years before going on to spell out that the media must start to reflect the views of their audience on climate change, immigration, the EU and radical Islam, in particular.
Farage then joined Charlotte Raab of Agence France Presse, Katy Searle, of BBC News Westminster, Ece Temelkuran, a Turkish writer and journalist, and Jon Williams of ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] News for a panel discussion.
Although Temelkuran agreed with Farage that the atmosphere was funereal, the other panelists stuck to establishment lines. Robinson said of Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s Front National, that she is “widely regarded as a nazi”. Ms. Le Pen is currently the second most hotly tipped person to be France’s next president, behind the Republican candidate François Fillon.
Although many traditional news outlets are rapidly losing their audience to new media sites – Britain’s Independent newspaper was forced to cease its print edition and go solely online earlier this year – the audience at News Xchange largely appeared to reject Farage’s advice to listen to their audience.
Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to correctly attribute the quote saying Marine Le Pen is “widely regarded as a Nazi” to moderator Nick Robinson, not AFP politics correspondent Charlotte Raab.