By Jim Murphy
How Political Incentives Turn Journalism into a Weapon — and What History Says Comes Next
In democratic societies, journalism is often described as the fourth estate — not because it governs, but because it restrains. Its power lies in distance: distance from political parties, from campaign machinery, from the urgency of winning votes. Elections are precisely the moment when that distance matters most.
Yet over the past fifteen years, election cycles across Europe and the United States have revealed a recurring and deeply unsettling pattern. In periods of political competition, sections of the media — television, podcasts, digital outlets and print — have drifted from scrutiny into alignment. Not through envelopes of cash or secret instructions, but through something more banal and more dangerous: narrative convergence between political incentives and editorial framing.
When this happens, journalism does not merely report on elections. It begins to participate in them.
The consequences are not theoretical. Courts have overturned election results. Politicians have been forced out of races. Editors and reporters have faced criminal convictions. Entire newsrooms have collapsed. The historical record is clear: when journalism becomes an informal campaign tool, accountability eventually follows — often long after the votes have been counted.
The mechanics of media manipulation in election cycles
The mechanism is remarkably consistent across jurisdictions.
First comes the choice of target. Campaign-aligned journalism tends to focus on industries or actors that already carry moral stigma: finance, migration, technology, gambling. This lowers the evidentiary threshold. Audiences are primed to believe wrongdoing exists.
Next comes the method. Reporting relies on fragments that are independently accurate — corporate filings, historic ownership records, regulatory actions — but strips them of time and context. These fragments are then connected by inference rather than proof. The reader is invited to conclude what the evidence does not establish.
Finally comes amplification. The same narrative appears across television segments, podcasts, opinion pieces and social media clips. Repetition creates authority. By the time regulators or courts catch up, the political damage has already been done.
This is not investigative journalism. It is narrative construction.
United States: when journalism becomes illegal campaign support
The American record offers some of the clearest examples of how media activity can cross the line into unlawful electoral assistance.
During the 2016 presidential election, federal prosecutors determined that American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, had paid individuals to suppress stories damaging to Donald Trump. The practice, known as “catch and kill,” was not treated as editorial discretion. Prosecutors concluded it constituted an illegal campaign contribution because the payments were made for the explicit purpose of influencing the election.
In August 2018, AMI entered into a non-prosecution agreement acknowledging it had acted “in concert” with the campaign. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, was later sentenced to three years in federal prison for his role in coordinating similar payments. Journalism, in this case, was not merely sympathetic to a candidate. It functioned as campaign infrastructure — and the law responded accordingly.
Nearly a decade later, the same boundary between editorial judgment and unlawful political interference remains contested. On 15 December 2025, Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, in relation to an episode of the broadcaster’s flagship investigative programme Panorama, aired on 28 October 2024, days before the U.S. presidential election. The complaint alleges that the programme used selectively edited footage in a manner that materially altered the meaning of Trump’s remarks, presenting a truncated version as a faithful record and thereby creating a misleading political narrative.
In November 2025, the BBC acknowledged that the edit had given “the mistaken impression” of a direct call for violent action and apologised for what it described as an “error of judgement”, while maintaining that it saw “no basis for a defamation claim”. The controversy surrounding the broadcast subsequently contributed to the resignations of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and the corporation’s head of news, Deborah Turness. In his lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers argue that the documentary, distributed internationally through subscription platforms including BritBox, caused him “overwhelming financial and reputational harm”. The complaint seeks substantial damages and includes an additional count alleging violations of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, framing the dispute not only as a question of defamation but of misleading publication during an active electoral period.
The same election cycle exposed a parallel vulnerability: data. Cambridge Analytica harvested personal information from tens of millions of Facebook users without consent and used it to shape voter messaging. Congressional investigations followed. In 2019, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook $5 billion, the largest privacy penalty in its history. Cambridge Analytica shut down. The lesson was unambiguous: elections manipulated through unlawful information practices are not protected by claims of innovation or speech.
United Kingdom: false narratives and the collapse of electoral legitimacy
Britain provides perhaps the most direct illustration of how media-amplified falsehoods can invalidate democratic outcomes.
After the 2010 general election, the result in Oldham East and Saddleworth was challenged in court. The case centred on campaign claims, circulated through public communications, that falsely accused an opposing candidate of courting extremist support. An election court ruled that the statements were knowingly false and constituted an illegal practice under British election law. The judgment treated the election itself as compromised.
The ruling established a lasting precedent: false statements of fact about a candidate’s character, when deployed during an election, can void the result. Media amplification does not neutralise illegality. It can entangle journalism in it.
A second British case reinforced this principle through criminal law. Between 2005 and 2011, journalists at News of the World illegally intercepted voicemail messages belonging to politicians and public figures. These methods were used to obtain politically valuable stories and maintain influence within the political establishment. When the scandal broke, the consequences were unprecedented. The newspaper was closed after 168 years. Andy Coulson, its former editor and later Director of Communications for Prime Minister David Cameron, was convicted in 2014 and sentenced to prison. Parliamentary inquiries reshaped the regulation of the British press.
The message was clear: unlawful journalism in the service of political power does not remain a media scandal. It becomes a legal one.
France: when exposure ends a campaign — and why proof matters
France’s recent history underscores a critical distinction between legitimate accountability and unlawful interference.
During the 2017 presidential campaign, investigative reporting revealed that François Fillon, a former prime minister and early frontrunner, had misused public funds through fictitious employment contracts. Prosecutors opened a formal investigation while the campaign was ongoing. Political support collapsed. Fillon failed to advance to the second round. In 2020, he was convicted.
The French case demonstrates that journalism grounded in verifiable illegality can legitimately end a political career. But it also clarifies the inverse principle: when media exposure lacks evidentiary grounding, it risks becoming improper electoral interference. French election law treats undeclared advantages and illicit support structures as serious violations. Media outlets that amplify false or unlawfully obtained material during campaigns do not sit outside that legal framework.
Denmark: a campaign against casinos, built on inference and amplification
The Danish episode unfolded in the final weeks leading up to the municipal and regional elections of 18 November 2025 (KV25), during a period when gambling regulation had become an explicit electoral talking point across party lines. On 24 October 2025, the Ministry of Taxation announced a parliamentary agreement known as Spilpakke 1 – Et mere ansvarligt spilmarked, presented by Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen, the Minister for Taxation, as the beginning of an “opgør”— a reckoning — with the gambling industry. Several parties framed the package not as a technical regulatory adjustment but as a moral intervention, with politicians openly stating that further steps, including a near-total ban on gambling advertising, should follow.
Among the most vocal were Samira Nawa (Radikale Venstre), who argued publicly that the reforms did not go far enough and spoke explicitly about the need for a totalforbud on gambling advertising; Leila Stockmarr (Enhedslisten), who described gambling marketing as cynical and predatory; and Sigurd Agersnap (Socialistisk Folkeparti), who accused the government of moving too slowly and called existing protections for young people inadequate. In the weeks before the vote, gambling — and particularly betting sponsorships — became a politically convenient symbol of social harm.
This national rhetoric was mirrored locally. In Aalborg, Radikale Venstre city council candidate Steffen Hellediepublicly argued that the municipality should reconsider financial support and marketing agreements with sports clubs that partnered with betting companies. The debate was framed not around legality — the operators involved were licensed — but around morality and public funding. Coverage explicitly referenced AaB’s partnership with Soft2Bet, naming the Danish-facing brands Betinia and CampoBet, and linked the issue to approximately DKK 800,000 in annual municipal marketing allocations to local clubs.
Soft2Bet has established a major presence in Danish football through a comprehensive multi-year partnership with Divisionsforeningen, the association representing Denmark’s professional football clubs. Under this agreement, which spans the 2025/26 and 2026/27 seasons, Soft2Bet’s flagship brands have secured naming rights for the nation’s top three lower-tier leagues: the 1st Division has been rebranded as the Betinia Liga, while the 2nd and 3rd Divisions are now known as the CampoBet 2. Division and CampoBet 3. Division, respectively. This partnership subsequently sparked a public discussion, in which both residents and local authorities expressed their opinions.
At the same time, Danish broadcast and podcast media amplified the political framing. On TV2 Nord, a segment aired under the headline “Sportsklubber kan blive ramt på pengepungen” (“Sports clubs could be hit in their wallets”), presenting betting sponsorships as a threat to grassroots sport. The report did not establish any illegality, nor did it distinguish between political proposals and proven misconduct.
The narrative escalated further through podcast formats. On 24 October 2025, the Mediano podcast released an episode titled “Mediano Breaking: Bettingreklamer ud af fodbold – og så alligevel”, hosted by Peter Brüchmann with panelists including Sigurd Agersnap and editor Lars Jørgensen. In adjacent Mediano content, listeners were warned against using certain licensed platforms and allegations were aired linking operators to foreign criminal networks, including references to “Russian syndicates”. These claims were unsupported by any findings from Spillemyndigheden, Danish law enforcement or foreign regulators. They were false.
The factual core of the case was markedly different. A licensed operator detected anomalous betting activity consistent with coordinated player behaviour and reported it to Spillemyndigheden, as required by law. The regulator initiated a routine review. No finding of operator misconduct followed.
What transformed a routine compliance episode into a political scandal was inference. Media coverage relied heavily on historic corporate associations and past ownership structures, presenting them as evidence of present control while removing time and divestment from the story. Legitimate documents were paired with unsupported connecting statements. Compliance was reframed as suspicion; oversight as guilt.
No politician or journalist involved has yet faced legal consequences. Elsewhere, similar patterns have ended careers and closed newsrooms.
What history suggests happens next
Across democracies, the lesson is consistent. When journalism becomes a campaign instrument — when inference replaces proof and unlawfully sourced information is normalised — accountability may be delayed, but it is rarely avoided. Election law, defamation law and data protection regimes converge most sharply during political contests.
This is not a call for restraint in reporting. It is a call for discipline. Elections do not suspend the rule of law. They intensify it.
The press does not exist to win campaigns, but to make them intelligible. When that boundary collapses, the damage extends beyond any single industry or election. It corrodes trust in journalism itself — and once that trust is lost, restoring it proves far harder than winning any vote.
