While many of Mr. Musk’s posts, especially those about gangs engaging in gatherings, have originated in an ecosystem of far-right bloggers and activists, they are also tempting to mainstream politicians looking for a cudgel to use against their opponents. And they turn to editors and broadcasters who are looking for a good story.
“The British press and broadcasters, to some extent, fell over themselves to give Elon Musk publicity,” said David Yelland, former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid, The Sun. “They did it in the press because they are extremely hostile towards Keir Starmer. This is plain old Fleet Street bias.”
Claire Enders, a London-based media researcher and founder of Enders Analysis, compared Mr. Muska with Mr. Murdoch, the rebel media baron from Australia who turned the London newspaper industry upside down in the 1970s. “We’ve just got a new Murdoch,” she said. “He’s American, he’s a multi-billionaire and he’s close to Trump.”
Mr Musk, however, is not so much interested in taking on the British press as in discrediting it. He claims that the media participated in covering up the abuse of young girls. It is true that British newspapers across the political spectrum covered these crimes, if not immediately, then vigorously, as the scale of the abuse became apparent in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The London Times published a a major scandal investigationand the slow response of the police to it in 2011.
“It was on the front page of every newspaper and it made the 6 o’clock news for years,” said Raheem Kassam, who covered the scandal as editor of the British branch of the right-wing news outlet Breitbart News. “The idea that there’s a media blackout on this and we needed Elon Musk to uncover it is nonsense.”
