Yesterday, somebody told me that they were surprised by how many participants in a local radio call-in considered Farage's proposal to rescind people's Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) a good idea, to which my response was essentially this: What do we expect to happen when extreme views are presented as "sensible", "common-sense" questions, concerns, or attitudes, and normalised – nay, laundered – through the mainstream media?
If a message is repeated and heard often enough, people will come to believe it, and any related priors or prejudices that support the message will be reinforced. That it becomes easier to vocalise repugnant, formerly socially unacceptable attitudes, once those very same views have been promulgated by "trusted" sources, is an obvious corollary.
I also had another conversation yesterday that raised the question of whether press freedom mattered more, or less, than the media's ability to meaningfully carry out its primary function: to inform the public and hold those in power to account.
If the media fails to do this effectively, as seems to be the case with Nigel Farage, then press freedom, whilst undoubtedly counting for something, quite possibly matters less than we think.