Irish Examiner view: Media objectivity must always be protected

The notion of few gentle questions being asked of a party leader by other MPs from that party is a poor precept for any proper media platform to follow

Boris Johnson. Picture: Chris J Ratcliffe/PA

We rightly excoriate Russia and China for their unrelentingly tight control of media and communication. They counter with the accusation that western governments and their proxies (Murdoch, Facebook, the BBC, and what some people call old mainstream media) want to control the narrative and produce propaganda.

But democratic politicians and personalities often have more subtle ways of forming public opinion. They can, for example, appear on innumerable sympathetic TV programmes (such as Oprah’s) to get “their truth” across.