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JdeBP | on: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases
It is interesting to look at the details and see who the (news) 'media' are in this case. Going through the details, I find 1 instance (under Kemp) of the BBC, and everyone else is the 'usual suspects', the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times, and so forth.

The Guardian is only mentioned in context of exposing these conflicts of interests; and whilst I am surprised to find LBC and Nation Cymru as not being transparent about their experts and commentariat, I don't see The National mentioned at all, nor The Herald, The Scotsman, the Metro, the Financial Times, and The i.

This may tell us that these experts only appear in the 'usual suspect' news media. Or it may tell us that this report didn't look at a wide range of U.K. news media. The latter seems unlikely given the inclusion of some niche publications (I've never even heard of London Loves Business until today.) and things like Nation Cymru, so I am more inclined to suppose the former.

k1m | parent | next
The report doesn't say the media mentioned is an exhaustive list of the media that failed to disclose ties to the arms industry, which is what you're assuming.

You mention the Guardian. I took one of the names listed in the report, Richard Barrons, and quickly found an article in the Guardian where he's quoted but his ties to the arms industry are not disclosed: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/20/britain-def...

JdeBP | root | parent
Not quoted as saying that there should be some sort of budget or spending increase, which is the sort of evidence being presented in this report, but merely some historical context statement about how the armed forces had been 'right-sized for the era'; and with his political ties also mentioned.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if AOAV had a blind spot with respect to The Guardian. However, that doesn't show one; and they did do lists of news media for several of the 19 (e.g. Richards) indicating that they aren't just picking 1 example publication for each person. Which is why I'm still inclined towards this telling us that there is a certain subset of U.K. publications in which this occurs.

If they hadn't mentioned Nation Cymru I'd be inclined towards this telling us that the report is highly London-centric and not reflective of 'U.K. media'. But they did.

k1m | root | parent
I'm sorry, that's a real stretch. It's apparent to anyone reading what his comment implies.

And this is far from an isolated case, if you think the Guardian is an exception. We're all technical here, easy to use Google search and look up the names in the report and see how often the Guardian and the other "better" papers disclose the arms industry links. (Oh and the political party he's affiliated to isn't what's under discussion here.)

JdeBP | root | parent
No, You're the one stretching things. If you want to provide an example from The Guardian that actually works, and it is as easy to do so as you say, go ahead. As I said, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a blind spot, given who is on the staff and the byline of this very piece. But you haven't here.

Rather, you've showed an article where the primary complaint of the headlined report, that the potential biases of a commentator or a source are not made apparent, does not apply because the bias of the person quoted, that xe is politically connected to the government whose actions are being scrutinized in the piece, is very much given as context.

k1m | root | parent | next
As the person suggesting that the Guardian is somehow an exception in the UK media, I think the onus should be on you to prove it. I merely pointed out that the report did not say any such thing, and gave you an example from the Guardian showing them doing exactly the same thing.

I'll give you more examples, but here's a challenge for you: Can you find examples of the named people in the Guardian where their arms industry links are clearly disclosed?

Nick Houghton

From the report:

> In an article in the Daily Mail dated 2 April 2024, Baron Houghton backed the Mail’s campaign to increase defence spending. There was no mention made of his various vested interests.

The Guardian, also with no mention of his vested interests[1]:

- "Ukraine is being asked to fight a proxy war against Russia on behalf of Nato without being given the means to win it, Nick Houghton, a former head of the armed forces, told the Lords today."

- "Houghton also called for higher spending on defence."

Nick Carter

From the report:

> "Sir Nick has been quoted across various publications re-increasing defence spending, with only reference to his military status.”

The Guardian[2]:

- "The promises to bolster the defence of the Arctic came as British former head of the armed forces General Sir Nick Carter called for greater European cooperation to deter Russia and support Ukraine."

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/oct/31/uk-pol...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/11/ukraine-war-br...

eduction | root | parent
Moving the goalposts. I don't see anything in the methodology of the original study filtering for views favorable to the defense sector.
pjc50 | parent | next
> the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times

Indeed. These are pay-to-play propaganda and should not be accorded the dignity of "newspaper". Peter Oborne's resignation from the Telegraph is still worth reading: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31510152

gib444 | root | parent
And The Times and The Sun aren't even British. They're owned by News Corp which is American

And The Telegraph is about to become German

GB News is quite likely Russian ultimately lol

squidbeak | root | parent | next
GB News has emerged out of the Reform movement, which in turn is the child of UKIP. And there are good grounds to think UKIP was bankrolled in part by Russia. It's covered in part by Carol Cadwallader in the excellent "Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring". Alexander Udod (A Russian diplomat) seemed to be the handler for senior UKIP figures.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/timid-incompet...

SanjayMehta | root | parent
Why Russian? They're broke. Why not Chinese?
tialaramex | root | parent
It's just statistically more likely. The UK has a lot of Russians and somehow even those who were notionally sanctioned as Putin's puppets found it easy to obtain special case exemptions or conveniently happened to have transferred key assets to somebody who wasn't sanctioned coincidentally as it happened. Russia being "broke" is a macro-economic idea, the Russians involved are wealthy.

As with the drug trade lawyers are happy to take £££ of your obviously stolen Russian cash to help you argue that you and that money are legitimate. And if you lose? Oops, the payment to the lawyers is magically exempt so they keep that. The incentives to work for people who you know are crooks are very strong, just need to get cash up front because when anything goes wrong they're suddenly penniless and have never met you.

That's the stupidest thing about Trump's lawyers. These guys must have represented crooks before, so he's not different on that score, but why did so many of them not demand cash up front?

jrrv | parent | next
LBC certainly falls within the "usual suspects"
kitd | parent | next
The survey excluded veterans with no commercial ties. Maybe those publications not mentioned used them instead.
JdeBP | root | parent
Yes, and I was slightly disappointed, from a statistical point of view, that they didn't tell us how many people they excluded from the original sample for this reason. That could have told us things.

If (say) they threw out 967 to leave those 33, then one possible explanation that that leaves the door open for is that journalists are so used to there being no conflict of interest, it being the case the majority of the time, that they don't check in the minority of cases where there is.

I suspect that they didn't throw out anywhere near as many as that, though. But, still, I would have liked to have been told the figure.

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Pxtl | parent
> I am surprised to find LBC

Why? From afar my vague impression of LBC is that it's talk radio opinion slop, even if it puts in some effort to avoid the cartoonishly-far-right conservatism endemic to that genre.

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