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!
Try as they might Conservative propagandists and their press supporters are likely to face an uphill task in the run up to the next general election if they try to take political advantage from this winter’s industrial turmoil.
Images of striking nurses waving placards outside hospitals or train crews peacefully picketing railway stations will scarcely have the same damaging impact as the anti-union campaigns of previous decades.
Any attempt to recycle yet again press photographs of rubbish piled up in Leicester Square or coffins waiting to be buried on Merseyside from the 78-79 Winter of Discontent is hardly likely to resonate with the public’s recollection of the determined yet dignified defiance on display during the winter of 22-23.
Ruthlessness is the characteristic that defines the Conservative hierarchy once they realise a party leader is a dud and must be ditched.
For cheerleaders on the Tory tabloids, there has to be a smart about turn: from hero to zero, as headline writers and columnists eat their words and hail a new saviour.
Having been at the sharp end of the economic turmoil of the Thatcher decade we industrial reporters knew all about the power and influence being exercised behind the scenes by the Prime Minister’s press secretary
Bernard Ingham.
Our abiding regret is that we never had the chance at the time to interrogate him at first hand over his contempt for the leadership of the trade union movement and his astute manipulation of the news media on Mrs Thatcher’s behalf.
Ingham was without doubt the most successful head of government information of his era, and the last beneficiary of the cover that he and his predecessors enjoyed thanks to the loyalty of political correspondents at Westminster.
Rarely was he identified as the begetter of infamous briefings in Downing Street. Lobby journalists stuck to the rules and attributed information and guidance to unidentified “government sources”.
Keir Starmer’s previous backing for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party is one of the few lingering lines of attack that can be exploited by Conservatives-supporting newspapers.
Having had to witness the Tories trashing their claim to financial prudence and currently mis-manage a worrying Winter of Discontent, the party’s tabloid cheerleaders are having to scrabble around to produce anti-Labour story lines.
Corbyn lives on as a threat to the country in the minds of Daily Mail headline writers.
Strike action at a rate unprecedented for recent years and the prospect of another severe tightening of restraints on trade union activity are reawakening demands for more informed news reporting about pay disputes and employment issues.
The lack of in-depth coverage was highlighted at a fringe meeting at the Labour Conference in Liverpool, organised by The World Transformed, which discussed the reasons why workers’ grievances get such short shrift in the news media.
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