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!
An exclusive Christmas poem written by the broadcaster and former Independent MP Martin Bell – and a star appearance by the BBC presenter Kate Silverton and her baby daughter – were two of the highlights of the Journalists’ Charity’s annual Christmas carol concert.
St Bride’s Church, just off Fleet Street, was packed for one of the charity’s most popular social events (17.12.2012) which once again was hosted by the communications consultancy Luther Pendragon.
In his address, Bill Hagerty, the charity’s chairman, predicted that the vast majority of British journalists had the resilience to throw off a tarnished year and once again become the ‘envy of the rest of the world’.
Martin Bell’s poem, written specially for the service, wished Christmas-tide good will to ‘bloggers, blaggers and to hackers and to all who work with pen and quill’.
Mr Hagerty’s reading of the poem – a surprise contribution by one of the charity’s prominent supporters – was preceded by another show-stealing moment when Clemency, the one-year-old daughter of the BBC presenter Kate Silverton, looked on as her mother joined other distinguished journalists in giving the readings.
One of Lord Justice Leveson’s most troubling conclusions was that he found nothing which gave “rise to any legitimate public concern” about the way information flows from the state to the press. He thought the interaction between politicians and newspapers was in “robust good health.”
But the report and recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry (29.11.2012) fly in the face of reality. The judge failed to come to terms with ways in which the government of the day can try to manipulate the news agenda with Conservative – or Labour – supporting newspapers.
In delivering his recommendations, Leveson criticised the newspapers for having been so active in lobbying ministers in advance of publication of his own report – and in arguing their case so vociferously against state regulation of the press.
But his pained rebuke was a reflection of the contradictions in his conclusions. The image of Leveson recommendations turning Britain back three hundred years to the “dark ages” of a licensed press (Daily Mail) – by the judge having the temerity to suggest legislation to underpin independent regulation – was a classic illustration of the power of campaigning journalism – a campaign being waged to the mutual advantage of press proprietors and Conservative politicians.
Lynton Crosby’s appointment as David Cameron’s head of campaign strategy is the clearest signal yet that it will be “business as usual” when the Conservative Party tries again to manipulate the news agenda in the long lead-up to the 2015 general election.
Like his two most infamous fellow travellers – Alastair Campbell and Andy Coulson – Crosby has an innate understanding of the ups and downs of 24-hour news... and the ruthlessness that is needed to take on the British media.
Crosby shares with the two ACs – Campbell and Coulson – an ability to identify key election messages and then reinforce them relentlessly through press campaigns. All three have seemed to get a kick out of riding the tiger of the British news agenda.
At the age of fifty-five, Crosby is also one of the great survivors among political spin doctors having been dubbed the “Wizard of Oz” for his success in helping to pull off four election victories for the Australian Prime Minister John Howard between 1996 and 2007.
His one set back in the UK, his failure to pilot Michael Howard to victory for the Conservatives in the 2005 general election, was followed by his double whammy of success in the London Mayoral elections running Boris Johnson’s 2008 campaign and then his re-election in 2012.
While many journalists were understandably fearful that the outcome of the Leveson Inquiry might be used as “payback time” by politicians, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg struck a helpful note at the Journalists’ Charity’s annual reception at the Embassy of Ireland (7.11.2012).
In thanking him for his support, the charity’s chairman Bill Hagerty said Mr Clegg was the first journalist turned politician to become Deputy Prime Minister and it was gratifying to hear him sounding positive about his former profession.
Mr Clegg was warmly welcomed by the Ambassador of Ireland Mr Bobby McDonagh who said a meeting later in the week in Dublin (9.11.2012) between the Deputy Prime Minister and his opposite number was a further illustration of the close relationship between the British and Irish governments.
But pleasantries aside there was no hiding the reality of the moment: journalism was at crossroads and, as the chairman remarked, journalists were not all sleeping easily as the Leveson Report loomed. Mr Clegg said he recognised it was a time of heightened interest in the interaction between the press and society in the wake of recent scandals which had shaken politics and the news media.
In a news provider like the BBC, where story lines are constantly being changed and updated, journalists and editors have to trust each other. There is what amounts to an umbilical cord of trust between a reporter out on assignment and those executives who have editorial control over what is broadcast in news bulletins and programmes.
Sometimes that sense of trust gets eroded; perhaps the journalist senses that the editor no longer approves of the story line which is being pursued.
If there is a serious misunderstanding the umbilical cord might be broken altogether. Very occasionally – as I know from thirty years as a BBC correspondent – that breakdown in relations might have been due to what I can only describe as a hidden agenda on the part of the BBC’s management.
When it comes to the dropping of Newsnight’s investigation into the allegations of child abuse against the late disc jockey Sir Jimmy Saville, the suspicion is that the story was dropped for corporate reasons: the BBC did not want to jeopardise its pre-Christmas tribute programmes to such a well-known celebrity.
It is the manoeuvring within the BBC’s editorial chain of command – which was going on without the knowledge of Newsnight’s reporter Liz MacKean and producer Merion Jones – which makes the Savile saga so dangerous for the BBC.
Page 33 of 57