Coventry University Conversation 

April 23, 2009

Speech to MPs in the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus 1.4.2008 

If the talks to re-unite the island of Cyprus begin making progress, there could soon be an enhanced role for the fifty-seat parliament of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. Determined efforts have already begun to re-engage the interest of both the public and the news media in the long-stalled programme to end the isolation of Turkish Cypriots. A priotity for action will be the establishment of a select committee to consider what will have to be done to ensure the institutions and services of the north are able to harmonise with the requirements of the European Union. An equally pressing task is the appointment of a public accounts committee to follow through the work which has already been accomplished by the recently-formed court of audit which has been monitoring public expenditure in North Cyprus. At a seminar in Nicosia (1.4.2008) Nicholas Jones gave a presentation to North Cyprus MPs and parliamentary staff on the importance of the select committee system and explained how strengthening parliament would win new respect for its members.

Speech to Thomson Foundation (Egyptian Journalists' visit) 19.6.2007

Tony Blair’s belated acknowledgement in his Reuters speech that the growing dominance of the internet and accelerating media convergence might require a new regulatory framework only serves to underline his government’s lamentable failure to protect public service broadcasting.

Through his unseemly courtship of media magnates such as Rupert Murdoch, which continued throughout his Premiership, Blair weakened the BBC and has bequeathed a media regime which could threaten one of the country’s greatest democratic safeguards.

News coverage of election campaigns is a classic British compromise: we have a free press and newspapers can be as unscrupulous as they like in promoting whichever party they choose. But coverage on television and radio cannot be politically partisan; there are clear rules requiring television and radio stations to ensure a balance in air time between the parties.

Speeach to Cardiff School of Journalism, Cardiff University 23.3.2006

Spin isn’t dead and it isn’t resting. It’s mutated; I think it has definitely changed here in the UK, morphed into something else, and the way spin is delivered by the government is much more subtle. There is still a gloss being put on what the government machine is saying but the publicists and propagandists of Tony Blair’s government have learned from the many mistakes of those who once resided in that hall of fame of British spin doctoring…Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, Charlie Whelan, Jo Moore et al. The bullying and hectoring which you see depicted in the BBC comedy The Thick of It -- which is done in a fly on the wall style and where much of the action takes place in Alastair Campbell’s lair in Downing Street -- is very perceptive but rather out of date.

The news media is now far more hostile to the Blair government than it was a few years ago at the height of Alastair Campbell’s power and that hostility means that the bullying and cajoling which New Labour could previously get away with is much too counter productive to be worth it. Another important factor is that journalists are no longer in awe of the Blair government, which many of them were initially. They no longer feel they must please the new government or otherwise they will be squeezed out and wont get access. So instead we have seen the spin doctors learn new tricks, they are far more accomplished at marketing themselves in a crowded media market place and in getting out the information which they want to promote.

Speech to Press Intergroup, European Parliament, Strasbourg, 27.9.2006

British newspaper front pages for the 19th of July 2003 tell the story of the tragic suicide of Dr David Kelly, who at the time of his death was Britain’s leading authority on biological warfare. I believe Dr Kelly was perhaps the most significant confidential source of information in British journalism in recent times, at least in the years I have been a reporter. But behind the front-age headlines, there is another untold story, of a black day in British journalism.

What we witnessed in just a few weeks was a collective failure by the British news media to protect a source of information whose importance I suggest stands alongside that of Mark Felt, the former deputy director of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation, who a year ago finally admitted he was the celebrated "deep throat" in the Watergate scandal of the 1970s. Remember, that affair brought down President Nixon. And, yes, with the hindsight of recent political history, I am seeking to make out the case that if the journalists of the BBC had adopted that same considered, step-by-step approach which was followed by the reporters of the Washington Post, then who knows, Dr Kelly’s insights during the early months of 2003 might well have been enough to have triggered the downfall of Tony Blair. Yes, a British Prime Minister might also have suffered the same fate as an American President.

Unesco could be replicdebate, Portcullis House, Westminster, 3.5.2007 

Nicholas Jones spoke for the motion: That this house believes world media freedom is in retreat:

You might well ask: “How could a former BBC correspondent of thirty years standing, living in a country like the United Kingdom which is so rich in media output, possibly fear that there is any threat to the freedom of our journalists to investigate and report?” I make that case because while we are output rich, we are becoming increasingly content poor. Our news gathering, in its scope and depth, is nothing like as strong as it once was. And, I fear the trends we see here in the UK ated around the world.

Speech to political and parliamentary correspondents, Bakhu, Azerbaijan. 20.9.2006 

British political journalism is livelier, more sensational -- and potentially more dangerous for politicians and governments -- than in most other European countries. The main reason is that the British newspapers are very political in what they say and extremely powerful when it comes to deciding what is news and influencing their readers. The press does often dictate the political agenda and there is no doubt that if the Prime Minister of the day is unpopular and has lost the support of the main newspapers, then that can sometimes be enough to ensure that the government of the day is defeated.

Unlike much of Europe, Britain does not tend to have coalition governments; our elections tend to be clear cut, either the party in power is defeated or re-elected. Only very rarely do we have what we call a hung Parliament where no party has an overall majority. Our newspapers thrive in this volatile environment and the newspapers often change sides: one year they might support the government, the next the Opposition and this can be very significant because our newspapers have far larger circulations than comparable newspapers in the rest of Europe. We have seven newspapers which sell more than a million copies a day. Our nearest neighbouring country is France which like Britain has a population of around 60 million people, but it does not have a single newspaper selling a million copies, the biggest sale is only half a million.