Politicians v Hacks

At the end of January I saw Alastair Campbell give the annual Hugh Cudlipp memorial lecture at the London College of Communications. Whatever you think of Campbell, it can't be denied that he can hold an audience. He berated the 24-press for declining standards as rumour and scandal is reported as fact to feed the beast of constant news. In the Q&A session at the end he was, unsuprisingly, accused of singlehandedly detroying the relationship between politicians and the press. He rather halfheartedly defended himself but his words rung in my ears when I wrote a feature about how the British media impacts the public’s attitude to politicians. Take a look.

It has always been inevitable that the media would be the British public’s gatekeeper to politics. For the millions of people who do not watch BBC Parliament or travel to Westminster to observe politics in action close up, the media acts as a filter of information for the British people. To improve their public profile an MP will actively court the press and as a result, the media plays a powerful role in shaping how the public view politicians. The stories that shift papers are those the MPs haven’t put into the hands of the journalist. There’s nothing the press enjoys more than revealing the misdemeanours of public servants.
In 2005 the Labour MP Clive Soley wrote in the British Journalism Review that the press’s desire for scandal about politicians is doing a disservice to both press and politics:
“The public may be more impressed with us both if we could be seen and heard discussing the policy options, instead of some of the more trivial issues often concerning personal behaviour that fill so much editorial space. Democracy is profoundly important. To make it function properly, press and politicians need to review the way they work and to do it now.”
Every time the media salivates over another political drama the issues and message of the government of the day become distracted and corrupted. The delight expressed in the majority of the press when an MP gets caught in trouble does little to elevate politicians in the eyes of the voters.
While newspaper proprietors may gleefully rub their hands together every time an MP fiddles their expenses or gets too close to their secretary there have been just as many instances when the press has been just as manipulated as the public has.
It would be easy to blame former Blair spindoctor Alastair Campbell for all manner of sins regarding the public’s contempt for politicians, Campbell himself was part of a far greater machine.
As he said at the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture last month, the appetite for 24 hour news is insatiable and must be filled. As a result, all networks and newspapers are constantly looking for a better story than their competitors and they want to get it first. Stories about dirty-dealing politicians sell well because they now fit the mould of public expectation.
When Andrew Gilligan wrote in the Mail on Sunday that Campbell was responsible for ‘sexing up’ the dossier about Weapons of Mass Destruction, he cemented the common perception that Campbell was a master manipulator. However, the Hutton Inquiry that followed the suicide of weapons expert Dr David Kelly revealed the rot that had set in with both the press and the politicians.
David Cox from the Conservative Party’s Broadcasting Policy Group wrote in the BJR that: “The overall outcome of the Kelly affair has been to entrench public contempt for politicians.” But he also said that it highlighted fundamental flaws in the BBC’s approach to news gathering. In his essay he wrote: It is not only Alastair Campbell who considers the BBC to have strayed from its proper path in its dealings with the late doctor. Some of the BBC's Governors have apparently been wondering whether the corporation "should stick to reporting news, instead of trying to make it". Yet broadcast news chiefs have thus become understandably determined to enhance the popular appeal of their output. Endless visual rejigs, an influx of nubile newsreaders and the prioritisation of celebrity gossip bear witness to this ambition. The kind of engagement and sensation which seem to work in print have seemed another obvious way to put bums on sofas. If this has had to mean sacrificing central features of the traditional order, that has been considered a price worth paying.”
The public’s contempt for politicians is now so deeply entrenched it is only matched by the contempt the public feels for the medium that peddles it stories of political scandal. Newspapers are so longer reliable sources because so many stories are published unchecked. As Nick Davies argues in his book Flat Earth News, the rush to get the story defeats the need to verify it first. Other newspapers are regarded as valid sources instead of the centre of the story.
The media have become so used to being deceived by government spokespeople it is no longer compulsory to check the facts with the relevant department, so high is the expectation of being lied to. The lack of trust between press and politics means that both arenas suffer and the public is both deceived and disillusioned. Until both parties stop regarding the other as the enemy to be battled and defeated, the public will continue to perceive both as sources of misinformation rife with political agenda.
Therefore, the press may be the gatekeepers to the public’s attitude to politicians but the press’s coverage is rarely seen as the Holy Grail of truth and wisdom. Perhaps the British press could take a lead from its US counterpart, where news and opinion are well distinguished, and the news is checked and verified, while opinion is clearly marked as such. While political agenda and a blanket feeling of mistrust dominate the British press, the public’s attitude can only be one of contempt to both professions, which will do nothing to boost ailing voter turnout records and falling newspaper circulation figures.