A journalist of fifty years standing offers a personal and independent assessment of the often troubled relationship between public figures and the British news media.
My aim is to try to monitor events and issues affecting the ethics of journalism and the latest developments in the rapidly-changing world of press, television, radio and the Internet.
Expect too an insight into the black arts of media manipulation. So spin-doctors, Beware!
Revisiting the 1986 Wapping dispute brought back no sense of journalistic achievement. As one of the labour and industrial correspondents who reported the strike by 5,500 sacked printworkers, my abiding recollection is one of failure.
I fear my coverage on BBC Radio did not get across the full magnitude of the brutality and potential implications of Rupert Murdoch’s covert decision to switch production of his newspapers from Fleet Street to what became known as Fortress Wapping.
Memories of the challenges we journalists faced came flooding back when listening online to a symposium marking the 40th anniversary of the dispute which was held at Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell.
Local newspapers across the country have been publicising a campaign by press proprietors to persuade the government to continue a legal requirement for changes in alcohol licensing to be advertised within each locality.
Under the headline Last Call, identical front pages warned that the public’s “right to know” was threatened by a review of licensing laws in England and Wales aimed at cutting red tape in the hospitality industry.
BBC Russia editor Steve Rosenberg owes his ability to continue reporting from Moscow to what he believes is President Putin’s wish to be regarded as the head of a superpower, a role that requires Russia accepting the presence of the world’s new media.
Like correspondents from other western broadcasters such as France, Germany, Italy and Sky News, Rosenberg realises that he is forever walking a tight rope, knowing he could be expelled at any time.
All that he has is a three-month visa and its renewal is always left until the very last day, a constant reminder of his vulnerability.
Donald Trump’s cheerleaders in the UK’s right-wing newspapers delivered a master class in their gung-ho reporting of the surprise attack by US stealth jets to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
Daring military operations trying to right the wrongs of the world are an intoxicating brew for the British tabloids whose expertise in delivering bellicose coverage was so admired by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher during the 1982 Falklands War.
“Stick it up your bunker” declared the Sun (23.6.2025) ahead of ten pages of reports on how the US had hit “Iran nukes in Midnight Hammer” attack – a front-page headline straight out of the playbook of the paper’s legendary former editor Kelvin MacKenzie.
Nigel Farage’s success in outflanking Keir Starmer when he pledged to reinstate winter fuel payments and child benefits reflected his innate understanding of how to enlist the UK’s dominant right-wing newspapers to help upstage political opponents.
A knack of knowing when to pounce on a wounded leader or a party in distress is an invaluable attribute in the jungle of British politics and is even more powerful if the opportunity chimes with the news media’s agenda.
For the last two decades Farage’s adroit positioning has helped to weaponize a succession of aggressive press campaigns.
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