How do newspapers influence their audience? Not with one headline, that’s for sure. Not with a single leading article telling them what to think and what to do. Not by confronting them with unpalatable truths that question their prejudices.

It is, instead, all about repetition, finding ways of reinforcing those prejudices day after day after day. The message must be hammered home relentlessly with news stories, leading articles, commentaries and cartoons.

By playing to the gallery in a drip-drip-drip process over months, if not years, newspapers have an impact on readers who never think about, let alone question, the propaganda they consume.

Even when there is no news of consequence, inventive editors can come up with headlines to underpin their political stance. As for information that doesn’t fit the line, it can be downplayed or omitted.

In mobilising readers, newspapers also seek to influence elite opinion-formers too, namely elected politicians. So the run-up to the European Union referendum has provided a fascinating insight into the exercise of press power.

With David Cameron trying to sell his renegotiation package to European leaders and, just as pertinently, to his own party, the rightwing Eurosceptic newspapers are now playing a major role.

Consider the EU-related coverage on Wednesday and Thursday. Although they were days without any significant news about the issue the Brexit drips were there all the same, persuading readers and politicians to dare to vote ‘no’.



Drip, drip drip...

The Daily Mail splash on Wednesday, “Britain’s trade to EU slumps”, quoting trade figures from the Office for National Statistics, claimed that the British economy “has become less reliant on the crisis-hit EU than ever as exports to Europe continue to collapse.”

The article turned inside to a spread headlined “3 million more migrants to come”. It claimed, on the basis of research by MigrationWatch, that “up to three million asylum seekers will arrive in Europe in the next two years” and that “the EU’s asylum system is ‘unable to cope’”.

Then came the editorial, which contended that the ONS figures provide striking evidence that the argument of Britain’s trade suffering if we pulled out of the EU were “palpable nonsense.”

It said it was “deeply depressing” to see Cameron “gagging his front bench critics and scaremongering about EU ‘reprisals’ if voters fail to endorse the empty package outlined last week.”

On Thursday, the front page was dominated by the reproduction of a letter from Margaret Thatcher to Tory MP Bill Cash in which she said she would have rejected the Maastricht treaty. “No! No! No!” screamed the headline.

Inside was the article about the letter, sent in 1993, plus a story claiming 100 Tories are ready to campaign to leave the EU.

A leading article, “Thatcher returns to haunt her errant aide”, argued that the late prime minister’s former adviser, Charles Powell, had been wrong to suggest she would have supported Cameron’s latest EU deal.

In addition, there was an op-ed piece by Richard Littlejohn, which began by referring to Cameron’s “contemptuous instruction to his MPs to ignore their constituents’ views on Europe in the coming referendum.”

Drip, drip drip...

The Daily Telegraph carried six EU articles. The main news story, “PM ‘could have won six-year EU benefit ban’”, which suggested Cameron could have secured a better deal, was supplemented by a story claiming Poland was threatening Cameron’s renegotiation and another quoting a former ambassador to Paris supporting Cameron in his claim that Francve might scrap border arrangements if Britain leaves the EU.

Michael Deacon’s sketch derided Eurosceptics who have changed their minds by highlighting Tory MP Nick Herbert’s support for Cameron’s deal. “Perhaps we need a new term for him”, wrote Deacon, suggesting . “Euroscepticsceptic.”

Thursday’s main anti-EU story was bizarre, headlining Donald Trump’s claim that “Europe faces disaster over immigration”. Another page lead concerned the view of Boris Johnson’s wife that Cameron’s deal wasn’t good enough.

Drip, drip drip...

On Wednesday, the Daily Express carried a front page blurb to the views of Nigel Farage: “We can only control our borders by leaving the EU”. Inside was a page lead, “‘Migration is the vital EU issue’” plus a secondary article, “PM’s sovereignty law ‘will fail’”.



And there was also an editorial backing up Farage’s opinion, “Of course migration will dominate the EU referendum”, arguing that the Ukip leader was “right to make this issue the cornerstone of his efforts.”

On Thursday, it splashed on “100,000 say no to EU”, based on a self-selecting poll in which 111,027 took part, 92% of whom voted in favour of Britain ending its EU membership.

An inside page contained four EU stories with the mean headline “100 MPs to defy PM on EU”. And its leading article boasted that the paper’s “crusade to get us out of the EU is on the road to victory”.

Drip, drip drip...

The Times’s main EU story on Wednesday reported that Unison, the trade union, may not support “the Labour party’s drive to keep Britain in the bloc.”

It was accompanied by a parliamentary sketch that, like the Telegraph’s, picked up on Nick Herbert’s Euro-turn.

By contrast to these vaguely anti-EU pieces, the Times’s leading article, “Barriers to Brexit”, was a measured summary of the debate about whether leaving the EU will exacerbate the migration crisis. Could the Calais ‘Jungle’ move to southern England as Cameron has suggested?

The issue, said the paper, does “exemplify a problem that voters will face in the EU referendum: nobody really knows what the consequences of withdrawal would be.”

Later, the article made more sympathetic Brexit arguments about Britain being able, in the event of leaving the EU, to follow “the Swiss model of making bilateral agreements with EU countries.”

And it concluded: “If the potential gains of life beyond the EU are to convince voters, Brexit campaigners will need to be more candid about the potential costs and the uncertainties on both sides of the argument.”

On Thursday, the paper carried a front page article, “Europe feels like day before First World War, president warns,” based on a statement by Donald Tusk about his worry that Cameron might lose the referendum over the migrant crisis.

Like the Telegraph, it carried the story about Boris’s wife sticking the nife into Cameron’s EU deal. Another article said No 10 was “in a state of panic” over a poll suggesting a Brexit vote was likely.

But the Times’s columnist, David Aaronovitch, got a good show to put the case against Brexit with a forthright piece in which argued that if the EU ceased to exist, “the migrant crisis would take off, nationalism would rise and liberal democracy would suffer.”

Drip, drip drip...

The Sun carried a page lead on Wednesday headlined “Land of the flee” about the likely exodus of more Syrians into Europe and linking it to potential problems for the EU. Adjacent stories were headlined “PM’s play to trump Euro law ‘pointless’” and “Cam ‘out’ delay fury.”

On Thursday, it headlined “Mrs Boris blast: lawyer wife slams PM’s EU deal as legal mess”. Other pieces told “Downing Street panic” and a claim that Cameron may resile on a treaty reform.