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PA
UK News

2016: Reflections from the editor

The whole family was round the table last Christmas, and despite politics being banned from conversation, it inevitably popped up.

My dad was convinced Britain would end up leaving the EU but, as I'm a journalist and I know what I'm talking about, I told him he was wrong and it would all be a storm in a tea cup. Dad 1 Marcus 0.

Later in the year my dad told me that the US would vote in Donald Trump as its next President. Again, I told him he was wrong. I'd visited the US at the time of Brexit. Church leaders and journalists there told me Trump had no chance. You have to trust church leaders and journalists right? Dad 2 Marcus 0.

So shall we start calling my Dad 'Nostradamus'? Perhaps not, but how did the media, the internet, pollsters, betting companies, politicians, church leaders get it so wrong in 2016? Have we really become so out of touch with the people we are supposed to serve?

There's a concern that we all get caught up in our self-righteous bubbles, in which only my way is right. We only listen to likeminded people, we just follow people on Twitter who are like us, we read the same newspaper day in day out.
 
Society is frequently told to be more tolerant and respectful of each other; 'British values' have been the government's buzzwords of 2016. But how tolerant and respectful are we to those who don't share our views, don't vote the same way as us? How open are we to listening to each other when we disagree?

The group Christians in Politics encouraged us to 'Disagree Well' during 2016. I'm not convinced we took the advice.

I'm also unconvinced we're even listening to people. "My opinion matters - yours doesn't", "You obviously don't know what you're talking about because you didn't vote the same way as me".

If we're to better serve our audiences - whether we be journalists, politicians, church leaders - maybe this is our starting point.

So for 2017, here's my vow. The news team at Premier will endeavour to listen more to what you're saying. There's plenty of ways to get in touch, you can drop us an email at [email protected], tweet me at @marcuspremier or leave your comments on the thousands of news stories that we will cover in the next twelve months.

What I can't promise, is we'll get everything right. But what I can promise is we'll keep trying.

I'm looking forward to being back with family over the coming days. Turkey dinner, cake, chocolate, humble pie...

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