Euronews video: Despite losses in Swiss election, rightist People's Party remains largest party in country
Wrong again! Swiss voters disappoint pro-chaos & confusion European news media predictions re Swiss People's Party, who remain THE most popular party
Once again, as they did with the French and British elections, the U.S. Mainstream Media's print and electronic cousins in Europe tried to write the headline for a story before the election took place, with the result that they got caught with their pants down again when voters didn't play their parts as vox populi puppets, and do exactly what the news media said they'd do.
As for instance in The Telegraph: Swiss far-right party SVP aiming to make election history
Yes, I hear hear there's a lot of that going around...
Predictably, the BBC, after-the-fact, says rather arrogantly,
"Voters know many Swiss businesses, and their health service, depend on foreign workers, our correspondent says."
Yes, but Helvetia depended upon them just as much before, where previous elections resulted in the People's Party gaining some seats they have now apparently lost.
Time for the news media to work on getting a more accurate list of excuses and alibis for why their elections predictions -with matching horror stories about the Right- failed once again to come true.
When you read the BBC story below, you'll see that the key fact that the People's Party remains the largest in the entire country with 25.9%, one-third larger than the Socialist Party after the election, doesn't get mentioned until the last paragraph, instead of the first where it belongs.
Sort of makes you think they almost hated to mention it.
The BBC story -and likely any story you see about this election in the next few days in U.S. newspapers- also doesn't mention the germane fact that prior to the weekend election, the People's Party had THE largest percentage of the vote in Switzerland since the current system went into effect 92 years ago.
So answer me this question, in a modern, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual country like Switzerland, how exactly does the European news media get away with continuing to say that THE most-popular party is outside of the mainstream?
They are the mainstream.
BBC
Poll jolt for Swiss anti-immigration People's Party
23 October 2011 Last updated at 15:18 ET
See also: Switzerland debates tough deportation proposal
