Tony Blair yesterday: he said the internet had blurred
the line between newspapers and television
Posted on 06/12/2007 9:57:29 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Tony Blair called for new curbs on the media yesterday after warning that increasingly sensational news coverage threatened politicians' "capacity to take the right decisions for the country".
In a bitter parting swipe at newspapers and television before he stands down as Prime Minister on June 27, he said the media behaved like a "feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits".
Tony Blair yesterday: he said the internet had blurred
the line between newspapers and television
While Mr Blair acknowledged that New Labour shared some of the blame by "spinning" too much in the early days of his government, he claimed the media was increasingly driven by "impact" rather than providing accurate news.
He said the current regulatory system, in which broadcasters and the press were subject to different rules and bodies, would need revision as internet broadcasting blurred the line between television and newspapers.
Newspapers are currently subject to self-regulation by the Press Complaints Commission, while broadcasting is regulated by Ofcom - except for the BBC, which has its own regulatory system.
"As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television, it becomes increasingly irrational to have different systems of accountability based on technology that no longer can be differentiated in the old way," Mr Blair said.
Ofcom said later that it would be up to Parliament to decide whether there should be a new regulatory framework.
A new audio and visual directive being drawn up in Brussels currently did not extend to newspaper content on the internet - but there were some around the European Commission who favoured "a more interventionist approach".
In a speech to the Reuters news agency on public life, Mr Blair said the media world was becoming more fragmented, with the main BBC and ITN bulletins now getting half the audiences they had previously and newspapers fighting for their share of a "shrinking market''.
He said fierce competition for stories meant that the modern media now hunted "in a pack''.
"In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits, but no one dares miss out,'' he said. The result was that the media was increasingly "and to a dangerous degree'' driven by "impact'' which was, in turn, "unravelling standards, driving them down".
He accepted that he had "contributed'' to the deteriorating situation with the media.
"We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging and persuading the media,'' Mr Blair said.
"In our own defence, after 18 years of opposition and the, at times, ferocious hostility of parts of the media, it was hard to see any alternative.''
Mr Blair said he had tried to have a dialogue with the media through measures such as on-the-record lobby briefings, monthly press conferences and the Freedom of Information Act.
"None of it to any avail, not because these things aren't right, but because they don't deal with the central issue - which is how politics is reported.''
He said senior figures in public life had become "totally demoralised" by the completely unbalanced nature of reporting.
Mr Blair said relations had always been fraught, but now threatened politicians' "capacity to take the right decisions for the country''.
He criticised what he described as increasing commentary on the news. "There will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying as there is coverage of them actually saying it,'' he said.
The relationship between public life and the media was in need of repair. "The damage saps the country's confidence and self-belief, it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions and, above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions in the right spirit for our future.''
Mr Blair said he was not complaining about the coverage he was given as Prime Minister, but claimed there was less balance in journalism now than 10 years ago.
He blamed pressure placed on reporters to find exclusives and expose wrongdoing rather than provide facts.
The internet did not escape Mr Blair's criticism either. He said he used to think the internet would allow politicians and the public to enjoy more direct and better communication but the growth of aggressive blogs and websites had proved him wrong. "It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon. New forms of communication would provide new outlets to bypass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media.
"In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five."
But Mr Blair said he believed there was still a genuine desire for impartial news coverage among the public. "At present, we are all being dragged down by the way media and public life interact. Trust in journalists is not much above that in politicians. There is a market in providing serious, balanced news.
"There is a desire for impartiality. The way that people get their news may be changing but the thirst for the news being real news is not."
Mr Blair concluded his speech by saying he had made it "after much hesitation'' and he expected it to be "rubbished in certain quarters'', but it "needed to be said - so I've said it''.
His comments were condemned as hypocritical by political opponents, who also warned against tightening regulation on the press.
Don Foster, the Liberal Democrats' culture spokesman, said: "It's easy to blame the press for a loss of trust in politicians. A fairer analysis would point to his own culture of spin."
Hewitt, for some reason, was enthusiastic about what Blair had to say. Sometimes Hugh seems sadly myopic.
Blair's proposal was couched in misty generalizations but his underlying message was clear — Blair thinks that if those who govern must be held accountable to the media then the media must be held accountable to the government.
I couldn’t disagree more. There is no way for government (or any purportedly independent surrogate that it may devise) to be an impartial arbiter of what is 'news' as opposed to 'commentary', what websites are "balanced" or not, or even what is or isn't "factual". Nor should it.
Then, the only media would be government media.
Some guy in Venezuela has it that way. Putin is almost there. There are plenty of other examples.
Those listed above, plus Blair, plus SocioPsychocrats in the U.S.A., all have the same political philosophy.
yitbos
I dont rate the solution, if that is what he is suggesting.
But as far as Blairs comments about the current status of the “fourth estate”, I thought he was absolutely 100% correct.
In a liberal controlled government, only conservatives will be censored.
Bump!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The Independent Blasts Back At Blair
Posted by Hugh Hewitt | 11:55 PM
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/8d22b6f1-5e56-4ec4-ba06-995ddcfe8988
The Independent —taking advice from Tony Blair’s speech yesterday— doesn’t let the a news cycle pass before responding to the Prime Minister’s critique of its approach to the news.
Reactions to Blair’s speech from Rudy Giuliani and Tony Snow are here. Blair’s remonstrance will be greeted with great applause and boos over the next few days. It was among the most thoughtful critiques of media, new and old, to issue from a prominent news figure in the last few years.
Simon Kelner: Would you be saying this, Mr Blair, if we supported your war in Iraq?
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2651061.ece
‘Opinion and fact should be clearly divisible. The truth is, a large part of the media today not merely elides the two but does so now as a matter of course. In other words, this is not exceptional. It is routine. The metaphor for this genre of modern journalism is The Independent newspaper. Let me state at the outset it is a well-edited, lively paper and is absolutely entitled to print what it wants, how it wants, on the Middle East or anything else. But it was started as an antidote to the idea of journalism as views, not news. That was why it was called The Independent. Today it is avowedly a viewspaper, not merely a newspaper. The final consequence of all this is that it is rare today to find balance in the media.’
Tony Blair, Prime Ministerspeaking yesterday
(snip)
Sounds like something Putin would say. I had to look twice to make sure I read ‘Blair’ correctly.
“Simon Kelner: Would you be saying this, Mr Blair, if we supported your war in Iraq?”
Its more pertinent, Mr Kelner, to ask would Mr Blair be saying this if he WASNT going to step down at PM in two weeks time? The answer is unqualifiably NO, because he wouldnt be able to risk raising the ire of the Media if he was intending to head the government for the next five years or whatever.
Thnk about that for a moment. Who elects politicians, who controls them? Who determines which political viewpoint triumphs and which falls by the wayside? I know who it SHOULD be. If the newspapers are reflecting opinion, that’s fine. If they are attempting to form opinion, I think that it is stepping outside of its remit.
If the newspapers are reflecting opinion, that’s fine. If they are attempting to form opinion, I think that it is stepping outside of its remit.
It’s always been this way. What we are seeing today is a return to the way things used to be. By that I mean noot all that long ago newspapers made no bones about where they stood in regards to the issues of the day, a major city would have several papers all supporting one side or the other, and competing with each other for readership. If you watch Fox or read Power Line you’re probably going to see the world one way, than if you watch msnbc and read the HUffington Post.
And that’s pretty much the way it’s been throughout our history.
True and fair enough. Doesn’t mean its a good thing though. Blair’s point, at least one of them that I can make out, is that a newspaper which simply tells you its angle on a story, to the exclusion of facts that allow you to draw your own conclusions, is no longer a newspaper but a “viewspaper”. There is a place for that in publishing, but the abandonment of any pretense of impartiality to my mind disqualifies such a rag from being called a newspaper. Call it a journal of liberalism, or a Herald of free enterprise, but dont tell me its letting me make up my own mind.
Another advantage of opinion over fact is that they both fill up the column inches, but writing opinion is considerably cheaper, and can be done from the comfort of your own office, without all that tedious tramping round interviewing people, or checking of documents.
And Blair is right about impact too. As newspaper circulation keeps falling, there is more and more pressure to make stories “sensational” to attract readers. You see this in many ways. For example, there is an increasing trend to use very strong words to describe what are often very small or minor differences between people, to the detriment of the issues (and the English language).
ATTABOY!
ooh...I feel better for that! Thanks.
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