Covering the EU at local level: A multiple-case study in Germany, the UK and Spain

Covering the EU at local level: A multiple-case study in Germany, the UK and Spain Rubén Rivas-de-Roca¹*, Francisco J. Caro-González² and Mar García-Gordillo¹ ¹Department of Journalism II, University of Seville, Seville, Spain; ²Department of Business Administration and Marketing, University of Seville, Seville, Spain *[email protected] This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published online by SAGE Journals in International Communication Gazette on 22 October 2022, available online: https://doi.org/10.1177/17480485221134177 Covering the EU at local level: A multiple-case study in Germany, the UK and Spain Keywords: Media performance, local media, quality standards, political journalism, European Union Abstract In recent years, European journalists show a preference for opinionated stories in a growing movement triggered by the acceleration of the political information cycle in the digital sphere. This research aims to analyze how reporting the EU meets quality standards, comparing the coverage of EU affairs in local media from Germany, the United Kingdom (UK) and Spain. We content-analyze all the published news items on European issues, collected over a one-year period (2018-2019). Local media are selected because of their relationship with democracy in nearby communities. Based on a corpus of 1,093 news stories, the results show that the number of statements was high; meanwhile, we detected a negative bias in every media outlet of the sample, but some differences were also found linking to national contexts. Likewise, our study provides evidence on the shaping of low-quality news about the EU, arguing that this practice could boost a polarized climate. Introduction In recent decades, the value of facts seems to have lost importance to opinions within the public opinion of Western countries (Munive, 2006; Otto et al., 2021). Journalists themselves show a preference for opinionated stories in a growing movement driven by the homogenization and acceleration of the political information cycle in the digital sphere (Casero-Ripollés, 2018). Since the emergence of online news consumption, journalism has ceased to be key in the process of providing political knowledge to citizens, who tend to inform themselves through social media (Strauß et al., 2021). As a consequence of the rise of digital platforms, journalism is more focused on political leaders than on public policies in Europe (Baisnée, 2014). In this context of personalizing news coverage, news production has become extremely competitive in the pursuit for spectacular stories (Carlson, 2018). Although production and distribution today involve a new dimension of players such as digital opinion leaders or factchecking organizations, politicians and journalists still occupy a central position in the public debate of Western countries (Chadwick, 2017). The European Union (EU) is one of the main international targets of disinformation. The journalistic treatment of the EU institutions has never been easy due to their intrinsic complexity, but some recent phenomena such as the European debt crisis, refugee management, and Brexit have spurred the EU’s legitimacy problems (Krzyżanowski, 2019). The literature even argues that exposure to media content favors a worsening of the public’s view of the Union (Brosius et al., 2019), increasing the feeling of remoteness towards it. The news coverage of the EU is characterized by a high frequency of official sources (Martins et al., 2012), which result in the genesis of a journalism of statements that could be limited to transferring the interests of the political class to citizens. Politicians and journalists have always lived in a relationship of mutual dependence, in which a spiral of cynicism emerges (Brants et al., 2009). At European level, this gives rise to contradictory currents of mistrust and mutual cooperation, triggering journalistic coverage that is highly dependent on EU institutions (van Spanje and de Vreese, 2014). The development of this cynicism can lead to politics being seen as something distant, in a perception that favors the decline of electoral participation. Despite the fact that most of the EU legislation is applied locally, there is little research on the role of local media in European integration (Scharkow and Vogelgesang, 2010). For this reason, this study compares the journalistic treatment of the EU in local media in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain. The objective is to conceptualize the hypothetical role of low-quality news about the EU, insofar as the European project is emerging as especially sensitive to disinformation (Wagner and Boczkowski, 2019). Our research is nourished by journalistic quality criteria, analyzing the relevance of news items, their diversity, personalization, and negativity. This quality works as a broad standard that allows the presence of opinion content to be quantitatively assessed and, therefore, of a journalism of statements that contributes to lessening the importance of the verified facts. Specifically, the notion of quality is referenced from the point of view of local journalism, which has strong particularities to which a cold and distant subject such as the EU is added in this case. Theoretical framework Reporting the EU in troubled times European citizens have traditionally perceived the existence of a democratic deficit around the EU (Goldberg and de Vreese, 2018), as there is no correct allocation of responsibilities between voters and the political class. This problem is linked to a lack of Europeanization of news coverage (Heft, 2017). Poor journalistic treatment has been further exacerbated by the proliferation of disinformation (Nelson and Taneja, 2018; Kermer and Nijmeijer, 2020), revealing the media as being incapable of building European identity in recent historical processes such as the refugee crisis and Brexit. The institutional component of EU players means that European news also belongs to the sphere of political journalism. This area has been dealing with a posttruth situation in recent years, forcing news pieces to adopt polarized positions in order to gain the public's approval (Carlson, 2018). The EU is hardly prone to conflict (Kelemen, 2020), hence the coverage of this topic calls for a strong national orientation (Esser et al., 2012; Heft, 2017). The communication deficit already detected in the Union of 15 Member States (Machill et al., 2006) seem to be increasing in recent years. With regard to journalistic impact, the volume of data regarding the EU does not directly influence the collective assessments of its working (Marquart et al., 2019), but it influences the use of certain conceptual frameworks referring to the idea that the crisis has exacerbated mistrust in European institutions (van Spanje and de Vreese, 2014). However, some of these sensitive issues, such as climate change, the economy, and immigration, are now emerging as central issues capable of mobilizing voters (Braun and Schäfer, 2022). Another feature of reporting the EU is its dependence on official sources. It is difficult for the media not to reproduce the messages of experts, particularly in economic matters (Arrese and Vara-Miguel, 2016). Limited transparency in the European decision-making process affected the quality of journalistic sources in the past (Boomgaarden et al., 2011). Studies on this notion of quality have been oriented towards public corporations (Fraile and Iyengar, 2014), which are frequent in Europe, but they have barely gone beyond these very unique media (Otto et al., 2021) and the legacy media (Frangonikolopoulos and Papapadopoulou, 2021). Although the literature emphasizes barriers to effective communication, there are also recent contributions highlighting the ability of leading media to promote solidarity rather than antagonism regarding Europe (Theocharis and Walter, 2018). The added difficulty lies in the fact that the European project itself often carries negative news (Brosius et al., 2019). Local media in a context of distrust Since the 1980s, news coverage of politics has experienced increasing personalization, accompanied by high doses of negativity (Kuhn and Nielsen, 2014). This global willingness does not prevent national journalistic cultures from continuing to play a fundamental role in the shaping of news (Hanusch and Hanitzsch, 2017), including the local press, which maintains its public service function (Jenkins and Nielsen, 2020). Therefore, this research develops a comparative analysis of several European countries. The importance of local media lies in their capacity to generate social cohesion (Leupold et al., 2018). Local and regional information shows a strong commitment to the territory to which the media is attached (Jerónimo, 2015), delving into the issues occurring in that geographical space and encouraging political participation, as it operates as a forum for discussion (Ferreira, 2012). Moreover, the local press enjoys a high level of identification with the public, as a result of greater accountability (Izquierda Labella, 2010). However, this connection with the audience, which allows to develop products according to their interests (Harte et al., 2018), has not prevented a crisis in the local media business model (Hayes and Lawless, 2018). Following on from the above, precariousness reverts to a progressive instability of the sector, which is increasingly less professionalized and dependent on volunteers (Williams et al., 2015). Another difficulty of local journalism is its excessive dependence on institutional sources such as local councils (Morais et al., 2020). The lack of distance from sources correlates with the higher qualification of some local politicians (Shaker, 2014), who try to control the public agenda. Conversely, the local press fulfills the journalistic objective of weaving ties of belonging in its area of dissemination (Novy et al., 2012), despite recurrent criticism of its poor quality. Surveys indicated that in Europe, 60% of its inhabitants preferred local media to their national counterparts for information (Möhring, 2015). However, it is true that nowadays there is a journalistic disaggregation, in which the audience reads this press for issues such as politics or events, leaving social issues to one side (Newman et al., 2021). The EU is a topic far removed from local journalism. In this line, it seems relevant that these media approach national and international events such as the EU from a local perspective, in the sense of explaining how they affect the territory closest to the citizen (Rivas-de-Roca et al., 2020). News covering the European project can benefit from the huge revitalization of the local press (Negreira et al., 2022), as it is rooted in the closer contact of this specialization with the audience. Quality criteria for printed media Our study analyzes the coverage of the EU in the framework of quality standards. This concept of quality is weak and multidimensional, linked to different media traditions (Mompart et al., 2013). From the German tradition, the criteria of diversity, relevance, and professionalism are alluded to. Relevance connects with the importance of information, meanwhile the last point is related to neutrality and factuality (Schatz and Schulz, 1992). These items work as markers that allow information to be classified. Regarding diversity, local news items not only have to be comprehensive and meet the information needs of the people, but also provide a diverse and balanced content. This well-balanced approach refers to the concept of diversity, which means a diverse representation of society in media coverage. Following van Cuilenburg (2007) and Steiner et al. (2019), the concept includes diversity of issues and diversity of people and groups. The plurality of issues is required to foster a well-informed citizenry, whose voters must be familiar with many topics (Leidenberger, 2015). The assessment of quality depends on audience expectations to some extent (Mompart et al., 2013), but the news reception could suffer from cultural clashes that threaten its development (Norris and Inglehart, 2019). The fact that the EU is a democratic system leads us to prioritize the social function of the media as a criterion of quality in our research, that is, it is based on the analysis of how news contributes to a better democratic knowledge of the European project. To this end, we use the parameters of relevance and diversity recognized by the literature, but two new variables of personalization and negativity are introduced, which have to do with professionalism and the desire to be as neutral as possible. Research Questions The endemic problems of European news items mean that the EU institutions could become the subject of inaccurate and unspecialized news stories. Thus, our study seeks to examine the coverage of the EU through the presence of opinionated stories, assuming that there are divergences from country to country. Three states are selected that correspond to different media systems (Hallin and Mancini, 2004): the professionalized journalistic culture in Germany, the liberal and conflictive to the power system in the United Kingdom, and the polarized model of Spain. Actually, the model of Hallin and Mancini gives an outstanding operationalization, since this was a seminal proposal that compared media systems in Western countries through the relationship between politics and media. The model has been further developed, being still valid for comparative studies (Hallin and Mancini, 2017). Considering the analyzed three countries, in Germany there is a democratic corporatist model, marked by high newspaper circulation, neutral commercial press and strong professionalization, where high political parallelism and elite oriented press are trends in Spain (polarized pluralist model). For its part, the UK is a borderline case according to authors and has some features of liberalism and polarization to contrast with continental Europe. As there is little research on the role of local media in the circulation of European news, we pose the following research questions to explore the news coverage: RQ1. How much attention and, therefore, relevance does the local media attribute to the EU? RQ2. How diverse is the coverage regarding the EU? RQ3. Is the personalization of European news high? (C) London Eve. Stand. 6.5 2.2 37.7 *ABEF 6.5 0.0 2.5 38.8 *BEF 5.8 *C (D) This is Local London 3.2 5.8 29.0 *AEF 11.0 0.0 5.3 39.4 *BEF 6.5 (E) Sevilla Actualidad 18.0 *ADF 8.0 2.0 10.0 0.0 38.0 *ABCDF 14.0 10.0 (F) Diario de Sevilla 3.3 3.6 3.3 44.9 *CDE 0.0 13.4 *AC 25.0 6.5 Total (overall average) 5.5 3.4 16.6 28.5 0.3 7.5 30.5 7.8 The European approach is predominant and significant in Berliner Zeitung (48%), Diario de Sevilla (44.9%) and Berliner Kurier (27.7%), whereas the combination of national and European news operates in the British media (39.4% in This is Local London and 38.8% in London Evening Standard). These percentages are closely followed in the United Kingdom by the strictly national perspective, which is typical of its political and journalistic tradition. Accordingly, one example of news item with a national approach is “British strawberries could be a rarity next year due to Brexit”, published on This is Local London. On this matter, British data on national approach are statistically significant compared to most of the newspapers in the sample. Local approximation only appears with some frequency in Sevilla Actualidad (18%) and Berliner Kurier (15.4%). For its part, the “informative localization” approach (“proximity” and “Europe”), which can be interpreted as a strategy for bringing together local interests with the EU, is mostly observed in Sevilla Actualidad (38%). Its performance is statistically relevant in comparison with the other newspapers. In contrast, there is a greater overall presence of another mixed approach: the one that mixes national and European policy in all research media (30.5% of the total). National issues are important in shaping EU reporting, even in local media, to the extent that the national perspective prevails over that of proximity in these matters. Given that we are dealing with local newspapers, the greatest deficit is that there is no connection with proximity, and there is a link with the national sphere, despite the fact that local news constitutes the space of action of the newspapers in the sample. Moreover, each media has a series of preferential practices, reflected in the use of few formulas with high percentages. Another criterion of diversity is in the sources. Firstly, their quantity serves as a classical principle, although the type of those sources has a more relevant influence on the notion of plurality. Journalistic standards traditionally require a minimum of two sources, which should be higher on difficult topics such as the EU (Baisnée, 2014). Table 2 shows the distribution of the volume of sources in the sample media. Table 2. Distribution of the volume of sources by media (%). *In bold are the results with a 0.05 significance level, based on bilateral tests for the proportion of columns (Bonferroni correction). No sources One source Two sources Three sources More than three sources (A) Berliner Zeitung 7.0 44.6 *BCDF 19.9 16.6 11.8 (B) Berliner Kurier 29.2 *ACDF 13.8 35.4 12.3 9.2 (C) London Eve. Standard 4.3 18.1 24.6 24.6 28.3 *ABEF (D) This is Local London 7.1 20.6 25.8 17.4 29.0 *ABEF (E) Sevilla Actualidad 32.0 *ACDF 42.0 *BCD 16.0 8.0 2.0 (F) Diario de Sevilla 9.8 30.4 *C 30.8 16.3 12.7 Total (overall average) 9.5 29.0 25.4 18.0 18.0 According to the data, a greater number of sources is observed in the United Kingdom (28.3% of news pieces with more than three sources in London Evening Standard and 29% in This is Local London). The use of three sources is statistically significant with the German and Spanish media. British news about the EU demand from a greater volume of direct references to give a voice to the players involved, usually non-European. In the sample as a whole, the most common practice is between one (29% of the total) and two sources (25.4%) in all countries. However, it is concerning to note the high percentage of news pieces without sources in Berliner Kurier (29.2%) and Sevilla Actualidad (32%), again both significant. Consequently, the findings regarding the volume of sources are ambivalent across the media. The most common practices are to resort to one or two sources, which borders on the required limit, but there are also significant percentages of a non-appearance of references. As a trend by country, a greater use is found in the United Kingdom, whilst in Germany and Spain, few sources are used to build their European news. With regard to the type of these sources, it is a variable that makes it possible to assess the determining factors of these references. Six items have been developed, whose distribution by newspaper is shown in Table 3. Firstly, a certain plurality in the modality of sources is perceived in the sample as a whole. In addition to the lack of references in Berliner Kurier and Sevilla Actualidad seen in Table 2, here the regular use of international organizations as a source of information in Diario de Sevilla (27.2%) stands out significantly. This result denotes the foreign nature of their news on the EU. Table 3. Distribution of the type of sources according to the newspaper analyzed (%). *In bold are the results with a 0.05 significance level, based on bilateral tests for the proportion of columns (Bonferroni correction). Experts Internat. body National body Local /reg. body Politicians Other (A) Berliner Zeitung 8.2 6.6 1.8 1.1 56.1 *BEF 19.2 (B) Berliner Kurier 9.3 9.2 0.0 1.5 29.2 *E 21.4 *CDF (C) London Eve. Standard 9.7 *F 4.3 8.0 *A 0.7 57.2 *BEF 15.9 (D) This is Local London 3.2 3.2 11.6 *A 2.6 57.4 *BEF 14.8 (E) Sevilla Actualidad 2.0 10.0 8.0 20.0 *ABCDF 6.0 22 *CDF (F) Diario de Sevilla 3.2 27.2 *ABCD 17.0 *AC 3.6 26.1 *E 13 Total (overall average) 6.4 11.1 8.8 2.7 45.1 16.5 On the other hand, it is worth highlighting the use of national bodies by Diario de Sevilla (17%), This is Local London (11.6%) and London Evening Standard (8%), all of which obtain some statistical significance (Table 3). Also noteworthy is the use of local and regional bodies in Sevilla Actualidad, which accounts for 20% of its news and significantly differentiates it from the other newspapers, despite being a media that regularly used the European approach. The use of politicians as a source is the most common category (45.1% of the total), only being less in Sevilla Actualidad (6%). It is the preferred practice in This is Local London (57.4%), London Evening Standard (57.2%), Berliner Zeitung (56.1%) and Berliner Kurier (29.2%). We also observe statistical differences towards the Spanish media. As can be seen, the value of politicians as a source in the London newspapers is remarkable, something that fits in again with the United Kingdom’s own declarative journalistic culture, which is very focused on actors (Henkel et al., 2019). Politicians and, to a lesser extent, international and national bodies, are the top sources in the framework of this research. This implies that European information is clearly institutionalized, focusing on bodies and political figures rather than other players such as experts. Moreover, there is a lack of references to local and regional authorities. Personalization Headlines are the gateway to written journalistic content, a fact that could have been reinforced by digitization and mobile news consumption. In this study (Table 4), politicians are less relevant than thematic elements in configuring the headlines (25.5% of the sum of the two variables on actors compared to 74.5% on thematic issues). However, non-EU actors are significantly represented in the British media (23.9% in London Evening Standard and 32.9 in This is Local London). Table 4. Distribution of the headline frame by media (%). *In bold are the results with a 0.05 significance level, based on bilateral tests for the proportion of columns (Bonferroni correction). EU actor Non-EU actor European affairs Non- European affairs (A) Berliner Zeitung 6.6 19.9 *E 62.4 *BCD 11.1 (B) Berliner Kurier 1.5 13.8 40.0 44.6 *A (C) London Eve. Standard 9.8 *F 23.9 *EF 29.3 37.0 *A (D) This is Local London 5.2 32.9 *AEF 34.8 27.1 *A (E) Sevilla Actualidad 2.0 2.0 46.0 50.0 *AD (F) Diario de Sevilla 1.8 13.8 55.4 *CD 29.0 *A Total (overall average) 5.5 20.0 46.3 28.2 The orientation towards state policy may cause London Evening Standard to be the newspaper with the least references to European affairs in its headlines (29.3%). Likewise, Berliner Kurier and Sevilla Actualidad have slightly higher thematic percentages of issues that are not strictly European. In contrast, two of the media in the sample prioritize international issues in the headlines of their pieces on the EU: Berliner Zeitung (62.4%) and Diario de Sevilla (55.4%), both with significant differences compared to British media. For instance, This is Local London published the headline “Jeremy Hunt condemned by politicians and diplomats Soviet jibe at EU”, which mentions a non-EU actor. Conversely, the news item “La Eurocámara aprueba que la UE prohíba ciertos plásticos de un solo uso” (The European Parliament approves that the EU prohibits some single-use plastics) illustrates how Diario de Sevilla focuses on European affairs. It is striking that there are newspapers such as Berliner Kurier and Sevilla Actualidad that preferably build news regarding the EU from headlines about non- European issues. This reflects how the EU influences national and local political actions, whilst also being addressed tangentially, perhaps because it is felt that such non-European issues may better attract the interest of the audience. Beyond the media framing, the declarative level of the headlines is analyzed through the presence of textual citations in the headline. That information is compared with the orientation of the headlines to obtain possible trends that explain the use of citations in the header of the journalistic pieces (Figure 1). Figure 1. Frequency of textual citations according to the orientation of the headline (%). The data reveal that the use of statements in the headline is linked to the reference to specific actors, whether European (60%) or not (51.6%). This finding is reasonable, since the textuality is characteristic of politicians who make specific judgments. In the sample as a whole, most headlines (71%) lack these textual citations, as news pieces built around specific leaders are in the minority. The appearance of individuals with different approaches towards an issue can contribute to a greater wealth of viewpoints in journalism and are also related to a certain personalization of European issues common in Western democracies. The divergence in the presence of individuals in the bodies of text is greater (Figure 2), observing some common patterns between countries. 60 51,6 20,2 22,1 29 40 48,4 79,8 77,9 71 0 20 40 60 80 100 EU actor Non-EU actor European issues Not European issues Total (average) Statements Without statements Figure 2. Frequency of presence of individuals in the texts by media (%). The information is mainly built from protagonists (69.3% of the total), especially in the United Kingdom (79.7% in London Evening Standard and 74.2% in This is Local London). Once again, a personalist practice is detected, which is typical of the political and journalistic cultures of the British country. Berliner Kurier and Sevilla Actualidad are the two media in which this trend does not occur, with 46.1% and 68% of news items having no presence of individual players, respectively. The use of antagonists is minimum with slight exceptions in the more sensationalist newspapers in this study: Berliner Kurier (15.4%) and This is Local London (11%). Priority is attributed to leaders outside the European institutions, as in the case of the British newspapers that mention national actors because of its preference for this approach, or individuals are directly omitted. Some citations of antagonists are the headlines “Steve Bannon creates right-wing 'supergroup' intended to undermine European Union” (London Evening Standard) or “EU warns Trump: motor tariffs could lead to £230bn retaliation” (This is Local London). Following the above, Steve Bannon and Donald Trump are non-EU actors that orchestrate a negative vision of the European project. Regardless of this finding and the 71,6 38,5 79,7 74,2 28 68,5 8,5 15,4 5,8 11 45,1 19,9 46,1 14,5 14,8 68 26,4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Berliner Zeitung Berliner Kurier London Eve. Standard This is Local London Sevilla Actualidad Diario de Sevilla Protagonists Antagonists No presence scarce presence of individuals in two sample media (Berliner Kurier and Sevilla Actualidad), most journalistic pieces analyzed feature protagonists, European or on a closer area. The news items “Junckers US-Reise: Altmaier warnt vor hohen Erwartungen” (Juncker's US trip: Altmaier warns against high expectations) published by Berliner Zeitung, and “Evening Standard comment: Macron and May: the powerful and powerless” posted by London Evening Standard could be identified as good examples. This trend contrasts with the low personalization of the headlines. Negativity Table 5 shows the predominance of the topics of Brexit (39.6%) and economy and trade (16.4%), which refer to two aspects that have been the biggest crises in the European Union in recent years. Brexit is very important for Diario de Sevilla (37.7%), showing the significance between 2018 and 2019 of Britain’s exit from the EU as a topic of European politics, even in media outside the United Kingdom. Table 5. Thematic distribution according to the newspaper analyzed - block 1 (%). *In bold are the results with a 0.05 significance level, based on bilateral tests for the proportion of columns (Bonferroni correction). EP Elections Brexit Economy + Commerce Social Policy + Migration European Projects Other (A) Berliner Zeitung 24.3 *F 17.3 30.7 *E 11 *C 1.8 14.9 (B) Berliner Kurier 46.2 *ACDF 10.8 21.5 *E 6.1 1.5 13.9 (C) London Eve. Standard 14.2 *F 62.3 *ABEF 15.9 3.2 0.0 4.4 (D) This is Local London 9.1 64.5 *ABEF 14.8 3.9 0.0 7.7 (E) Sevilla Actualidad 26.0 *DF 6.0 10.0 12.0 *ACD 22.0 *ABF 24.0 *CD (F) Diario de Sevilla 9.4 37.7 *ABE 21.4 *E 11.3 *C 4.3 15.9 Total (overall average) 17.2 39.6 5.9 7.9 2.7 26.7 One of the characteristics of thematic distribution is that it is configured with a certain plurality between media. Elections to the European Parliament, held in May 2019, are referenced in Berliner Kurier (43.1%) with strong statistical significance, followed in frequency by Sevilla Actualidad (22%). Therefore, the coverage of these elections has presented notable divergences in terms of volume. There is also a finding of interest in “European projects”, as the Spanish media concentrate the majority of references (22% in Sevilla Actualidad and 4.3% in Diario de Sevilla), which is typical of a country interested in these funds. Sevilla Actualidad is also significant compared to the rest of the media that contain this item. It is the other way around in the United Kingdom, with no mention in its two media, which are likely to ignore the issue of projects in the face of Britain's exit from the EU and the zero impact that these initiatives will have on its territory. The tone of information about the EU is a fundamental tool to understand whether journalism practiced with the institutions is evolving towards a certain Euroscepticism. Thus, categories have been generated to collect positive, neutral, negative, and mixed messages about the European project for each of the selected media (Table 6). Table 6. Distribution of media pieces according to their tone of the message about the EU (%). *In bold are the results with a 0.05 significance level, based on bilateral tests for the proportion of columns (Bonferroni correction). Positive Neutral Negative Positive / negative (A) Berliner Zeitung 33.2 *CD 38 12.5 16.2 (B) Berliner Kurier 29.2 *D 44.6 12.3 13.8 (C) London Eve. Standard 15.9 57.2 *A 15.6 11.2 (D) This is Local London 11.0 58.1 *A 23.9 *AEF 7.1 (E) Sevilla Actualidad 30.0 *D 62.0 *A 4.0 4.0 (F) Diario de Sevilla 22.1 56.9 *A 11.6 9.4 Total (overall average) 22.5 52.0 14.3 11.3 The tone of the message with the European project is mainly neutral. (52% of the total). However, there are nuances, as the German and Spanish media also tend to have positive messages. This is the case with Berliner Zeitung (33.2% of pieces with a positive perception), which is significant compared to British newspapers, Berliner Kurier (29.2%) and Sevilla Actualidad (30%), which are of statistical interest in relation to This is Local London. In comparison, the British press seems to be oriented towards negativity, particularly in This is Local London (23.9%). On the other hand, the combination of positive and negative evaluations is more frequent in the German-speaking media in the sample (16.2% in Berliner Zeitung and 13.8% in Berliner Kurier), within its general tendency towards neutrality. In view of the results, the neutral tone appears to be a priority in information about the EU. Negative approaches typical of Euroscepticism are avoided. The local news in this study does not so much follow the tendency towards dissent observed in recent years around Europe (Oleart 2021). However, the aforementioned thematic agenda of the media could also be indicative of a pessimistic approach towards the European project. 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