I was at Cheltenham literary festival over the weekend. On Sunday, after my own event, I went to Elif Shafak’s evening talk. During the talk she kept returning to how much she enjoys these events, with live audience questions and debates that are long enough to allow answers with nuance and depth. That they are the antithesis of the knee-jerk sound bites and click-bait headlines in our media. She went as far as call these types of festival events our “last democratic spaces”. It was such an inspiring event, Elif is one of the most thoughtful and eloquent speakers I have ever listened to. And on this issue in particular I could not agree more.

At 8am the following morning, before I left Cheltenham, I went, out of curiosity, to ‘Breakfast with The Times’. An early morning event to discuss the news with Sunday Times editor Ben Taylor, Chief Political Editor Tim Shipman, and Literary Editor Laura Hackett. Both Ben and Tim have had previously held editor positions at the Daily Mail. Their discussions about the days headlines kept coming back to name dropping dinners with politicians and thigh-slapping anecdotes about their visits to Jeremy Clarkson’s farm. By the way the audience was guffawing it was clear this was a very different crowd to the literary events I was at the night before. But it soon turned to serious discussion, because this was Sunday morning 7th Oct, the anniversary of the 7th October attacks and marking a year of Israel’s genocide. The talk that dominated, however, were discussions framed around ‘antisemitism’ and ‘hate marches’. Even the literary editor, Laura Hackett, added to this. She told us she was baffled when she heard that some of her Jewish friends were attending these marches. I dont have a recording of this part but I believe the exact sentence said was “Imagine the mental gymnastics that are needed for a jewish person to join an anti-jewish march”. Mental gymnastics indeed.  

But then at the Q&A at the end I got the chance to ask a question. I stood up and described my horror at watching baby’s bodies being pulled out of rubble again and again almost daily for a year. And my disgust every time I look at the news stands. Not just the Times and Sunday Times but all of the British press for their shameful coverage. Then I read out, as an example, the Times’ own mealy-mouthed embarrassment of a headline that marked the month anniversary of the attacks: ”Israeli’s marked a month since Hamas killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 240, starting a war in which 10,300 Palestinians are said to have died.” I was heckled by Tim by this point but i managed to ask Ben, the Sunday Times editor, how can you write a headline like this and sleep at night? Ben’s response was, in fairness, more generous than I was expecting. But he left, I think, two elephants standing in the room. He said “even the BBC who are impartial” “are getting a huge amount of push-back on this issue”. First of all I dont think anyone with their hand on their heart could ever argue that the BBC is impartial on this issue. But what is interesting in this response is his implied admission that he is not being impartial. It’s not news that the Times is a conservative newspaper, but shouldn’t his paper be at least attempting to present the truth with some degree of impartiality? Is The Times and Sunday Times are still considered newspapers of record? This, straight out of the mouth of its editor-in-chief I think answers this. He then went on to say that the headline needed to be worded in this way because “Israel closed the border to journalists and so they have no way of knowing and have to rely on reports”. Which begs another question which surely any good editor would ask themselves when faced with such an extraordinary situation. Do you think it’s fine that British tax payers are arming a state that is indiscriminately bombing a region where no journalist is even allowed to enter? Is this ok? What sort of democracy is this? I dont know Ben. Shouldn’t this have been your headline? Why didn’t you lead with that? 

Which brings me back to literary festivals. Because, rather worryingly in my opinion, The Times and The Sunday Times are the sponsors of the Cheltenham festival. Like Elif Shafak, I am very grateful to literary festivals and agree that these are essential democratic spaces. So perhaps we should consider carefully the transaction involved in a sponsorship deal. Sponsoring an event is more than getting your logo widely seen on pamphlets and banners. It has the potential to shape the events and frame the questions. I am very grateful that I was invited to the festival this year, to talk about a book about disinformation of all things, so I am certainly not complaining.  Cheltenham is a fantastic festival. As are the others I regularly go to. And they are so, so very needed. But the potential for conflict of interest is clear. Why else would a sponsor like The Times want to sponsor an event like this? Our public discussions are already being framed by the questions these newspapers choose to pose, culture wars, migrants, terrorism, hate marches. Does this mean they also want to be suggesting the speakers for our festivals? Or choosing the subjects to be debated at events? Where are the debates about inequality? unregulated tax havens? corporate power? the corrupt arms industry that is undermining our democracies? These topics are simply not discussed.
There has been controversy recently over festival sponsorship. Festivals have a tough time just surviving, and many will argue that they need sponsors. Media sponsors in particular are important to bring public to events. But like everything else, this always comes back to a transaction. This is something I discuss in my book but I really think we need to have these discussions more widely. Because this, I argue, is one of the key things causing the deterioration of our public discourse. With very worrying implications for our democracy. We need to take a step back and look at how our information is presented to us. If our public discussions only come to us through a filter of advertising, sponsorship, and large media companies, then we have a problem.