You know in an interview loop where you consider "culture fit?" That's it. That's the conspiracy.

For a journalism job at the Telegraph you're going to need to have a resume where you've written the right kinds of articles with the right kind of tone. Have a bunch of articles that you've written sympathetic to Corbyn and those around him and you ain't getting the job.

They won't even need to police you that hard once you've gotten the job, because you've spent 20+ years being brought up a certain way and you're probably not going to massively deviate from your past all of a sudden, particularly not if you're clearly getting paid well based on your current trajectory. Once you get vetted in the interview process they know what they're getting based on the way you present yourself, the way you talk, your background, where you grew up, the schools you went to, etc. And when you've been there long enough you'll vet other candidates the same way.

And its largely the same kind of interpersonal mechanics that govern the formation of cliques in high school, enforced by interviews and performance reviews, with large incentives where if you conform you climb the ladder and gain more wealth and power. Nobody needs to write it all down just like there's no written rules that he art nerds tend to hang out with the art nerds (and I'm sure there's examples of people who you think you can point to who broke the molds there, but they're notable precisely because they broke the molds).

Excellent summary for people who think that there needs to be actual explicit indications for conspiracies (in the original sense of the word) to exist

Marriage and friendship networks. Particularly those formed in the public school (“public” means paid in UK) system. I doubt it’s official meetings, but rather discussions outside work.

Yep, it’s the dinner after the committee meeting, the bar after that. The weekend adventures, etc. That’s where the politics are discovered. And then coordinated.

How are public schools paid in the UK? Does that mean private schools are the free schools? Or do they call free public schools something else?

It’s a historical thing.

In the olden days the only way to get an education was through privately tutoring.

So establishments where everyone was educated together were “public” - even though you paid to attend.

Nowadays “public meaning paid” implies one of these original public schools (Harrow, Eton and the like).

I went to a paid school, founded in 1513, but it wouldn’t be called “public” because it’s not one of those original schools and therefore not high enough in the class system. It would be called “private”.

“Public as in free to attend” schools are known as state schools.

Just on a detail, I discovered recently that there have been various official definitions of "public school" and lists of public schools, and FWIW your school probably counts as one according to those. But I agree with your main points and your explanation.

The public schools would say their role is to prepare the future rulers of the country. And my school produced two former Chancellors of the Exchequer so I guess that makes sense.

Mine wasn’t a boarding school though which probably counts for something.

"State" school are the free, government run schools. "Public" schools are typically fee-paying, and are named so because when they were founded, anyone who paid could send their children there, rather than it being restricted by class or religion. They were "public" because the general public could send their kids there.

The ones everyone else goes to are generally referred to as "state" schools.

Micromanging is not necessary. They just set the tone and don't hire people who would write anything opposed to their policy [1] which they rarely need to explicitly convey, although they do at times of course. People write things that they really like get rewarded.

"Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky explains how this work with a very large number of examples.

1. https://youtu.be/9RPKH6BVcoM

2. https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Econo...

Exactly.

Internet commenters love to think their enemy's minions are stupid.

In reality they're just as smart as you are and don't need to be specifically told what the people in charge do and don't want published and/or what tone they should take.

Just imagine if academia were like this...

If you're part of a small group of people, it's easy to call your buddy when something bother you or a point of view you don't like gets published

More like a boardroom full of landlords, I guess.

>I'm curious, how does it work in reality?

the same way gravity works, you don't start floating through the room even if you don't actively believe in it. The financiers of these papers know the editors and managers they hire, they set the tone, they dine in the same circles, their kids go to the same schools, they live in the same neighborhoods, for ideology to proliferate there are no 'mechanics' required.