Matt Goodwin@GoodwinMJ
1h
Today, a number of prominent journalists criticised my suggestion that the UK media class has failed to sufficiently cover the rape gangs scandal, which will go down as one of the biggest scandals in our history
So, I decided to take a closer look at the data. Trust me, you'll want to read until the end
First, the boring bit. How did I do it? I used something called Lexis, a database researchers use to search content across UK newspapers
Every good researcher out there knows how to use it so they can duplicate my work and check
One of my critics today said my use of "grooming gangs" in my initial numbers was misleading because much of the coverage in UK newspapers uses "grooming gang" not "gangS".
OK then, let's use that And let's just look at articles that are specifically about this scandal and don't just mention it in passing. What did I find? Let's look at the years 2011-2025 because before that, even though the rape gangs scandal goes back decades, there was NOTHING in UK media. Nothing. They didn't touch it AT ALL --despite widespread rumours pushed by groups like the BNP and EDL 2011 is a crucial year because it's when renegade and HERO Andrew Norfolk, at The Times, started to write the first early pieces, despite abuse & harassment
First, let's look at ALL UK newspapers In 2011-2025 there were 4,659 articles specifically focused on the "grooming gang" phenomenon Wow Sounds a lot right? Remember the number. "Grooming gang" = 4,659
But now let's compare that with how much coverage the media class gave to other scandals and terms
"white privilege" = 6,146
"anti-Muslim" = 17,152
"post office" and "horizon" =20,274
"extreme right" = 21,252
"Islamophobia" = 23,461
"Greta Thunberg" = 22,717
"expenses scandal" =25,585
"Stephen Lawrence" = 29,808
"anti-racism" = 34,484
"Windrush" = 35,515
"George Floyd" = 38,824
"Black Lives Matter" = 59,338
"Grenfell" = 71,422
"Britain" and "racism" = 75,693
”Net Zero" = 141,367
"far right" = 231,540
"racism" = 382,069 I could go on.
I think the numbers speak for themselves. Relative to other scandals and amid a strong liberal bias in parts of the media class, the mass rape of young, working-class white girls & women just wasn't a priority
Yes, there were newspapers that broke the story and pushed it, like the Times in 2011 But even there, the 440 articles built around "grooming gang" between 2011-2025 is dwarfed by, say, the 2,868 on "Islamophobia", the 3,202 on Stephen Lawrence, the 2,603 on George Floyd, or the 5,524 on BLM
My point is not to bash individual newspapers but to say that relative to other race-related stories and debates, the rape gangs scandal --ARGUABLY THE BIGGEST SCANDAL IN OUR HISTORY-- has received very little coverage from the media class
I'd give you the numbers for liberal progressive papers like The Guardian/Observer but frankly they're absurd
Oh ok then Between 2011 and 2025 the Guardian had 113 articles on the grooming gang phenomenon compared to 3,325 for "Islamophobia" What about the BBC? We can look at BBC News 24 and BBC Radio 4
There were 357 specific mentions of the "grooming gang" scandal in BBC News/Radio 4 transcripts Meanwhile, there were 7,537 for "George Floyd", 3,219 for "Stephen Lawrence", 7,416 for "Black Lives Matter", and 2,259 for "Islamophobia" You get the picture. I won't keep going But what I will say is this. These girls were never a priority in Media Land Relative to other scandals they were at first ignored and then downplayed
Too many of the middle-class, Oxbridge-educated, socially liberal if not radically woke progressive elites who control the parameters of what they think is our national "debate" routinely steer clear of scandals and issues that violate tightly-controlled taboos around immigration, multiculturalism, "diversity" in all its forms, and which are backed up with alarmist narratives about the "far right" and "Islamophobia" to warn others off from asking difficult questions or challenging the elite consensus in Westminster and London This HAS to change
As I wrote in my Substack this morning,
@elonmusk has done Britain a favour by forcing us to reckon with a truly NATIONAL scandal that has for too long been ignored and pushed to the side by political, media, and cultural elites in wider society
This past week, we have been pushed into a new era in which millions of people up and down this country are either learning about the rape gangs crisis for the first time or hearing shocking new details they did not know before and can scarcely believe
And millions of people are now asking some enormous questions. How did our country let this happen to our children? Why was it overlooked? Why did so many people stay silent? Is it still happening today? What can we do to stop it? Who is pursuing the truth in media? Who is naming and shaming? And why does the UK media class fall over itself when a single American man dies in Minneapolis while seemingly not giving a shit about the thousands of CHILDREN who have been abused, raped and harassed here in Britain?
The people have tuned into this scandal, in other words. They have taken notice and they are watching. The only question now is whether the media class has bothered to notice and will actually get on top of this scandal and push it to front of the agenda or continue to ask ridiculous questions like it did for much of today, deflecting from its glaring failures to instead obsess about Elon Musk. Find the truth and tell us the truth. That's your job.