After a cynical betrayal of the idealism which every journalist should strive for, Alastair Campbell finally tripped himself up in the mire of his own double-speak.
His utter contempt for the journalists of tomorrow and the challenges they face was underlined by his choice of title for the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture, "The media: a case of growth in scale, alas, not in stature". (28.1.2008).
At the heart of Campbell’s reheated diatribe was his assertion that he and Tony Blair went the extra mile to improve the reporting of politics but it was rebuffed by the "relentless negativity" of political journalists who "culturally and collectively present an utterly one side view of political debate".
Instead of trying to inspire the numerous media students in the audience at the London College of Communication (there were so many they filled an overfill hall), Campbell traduced the profession which gave him his own career break: "I don’t think there are many journalists left who take their responsibilities seriously…My experience on the political side of the fence has meant that any idealism I had for journalism has been extinguished to zero".
After his lecture, Campbell tossed aside a few ineffectual questions but when asked to justify the leaking of ministerial announcements in order to gain advance publicity, he did momentarily let his guard down. Yes, he admitted, as Tony Blair’s press secretary, he had continued to brief journalists once the official lobby briefings had finished but his aim had been to have an input into any speculation.
"I think a legitimate communications function (for New Labour) was to try to create a framework in which a major speech or political development would land".
Here we got the briefest acknowledgement of Campbell’s modus operandi and, as so often in the past, he skated over what he meant by the "techniques" which he said the Blair government had developed, first in opposition and then in office in order to secure favourable headlines.
Yet it was these self same "techniques" which accelerated the decline in the standards of news reporting, which Campbell blames on journalists while conveniently disregarding his own culpability.
Against each of the ills which Campbell identified, there was an alternative explanation and instead of journalists being the perpetual target, an accusing finger could have been pointed just as firmly at the control freakery of the Downing Street press office.
Take for example his condemnation of "every exclusive which is not an exclusive". It was Campbell’s practice of providing exclusive stories and access to favoured journalists which did so much to heighten the amount of political speculation. Correspondents who had been left out of the loop retaliated with speculative and often negative stories, so desperate were they to challenge New Labour’s attempts at agenda setting.
When castigating broadcasters for failing to differentiate between speed and accuracy, Campbell omitted to mention that most of the stories which Downing Street supplied on an exclusive and off-the-record basis were supplied to newspapers rather than to television or radio and in such circumstances it was hardly surprising that news bulletins found it difficult to catch up.
Likewise with his assertion that it was "a devotion to impact which is unravelling standards" along with a failure to make greater use of the initiatives which the government had taken by instituting on-the-record lobby briefings and Blair’s televised news conferences. But again Campbell told only half the story.
While defending the need for New Labour’s "media handling plans" he did not own up to the fact that when trailing government decisions in advance of ministerial announcements it was his policy to help only selected news outlets and other news organisations would be purposely excluded, again an approach that was hardly like to drive up editorial standards.
Here was Campbell, himself a winner of the Hugh Cudlipp award for student journalists, refusing to offer even a hint of an apology for his abject failure to at least defend the best practices of journalism by ensuring equal access for all journalists. Perhaps it was no surprise that among his many boasts he did not repeat the line from his diaries, The Blair Years, about not minding if journalists were fearful of falling out his favour because he "wanted to undermine them, divide and rule".
Lady Cudlipp congratulated Campbell on what she believed was the greatest speech which had ever been delivered as a Cudlipp lecture but I could not help thinking that the former editorial director of the Daily Mirror group would have turned in his grave at the thought that a former prize winner had been allowed to make a mockery of journalistic ideals.
END