"The journalist is providing citizens with the tools they need to evaluate the government."
This sums up where the BBC (and others) have lost their way. It is fundamentally dishonest to pretend that politics is a simple matter of he said/she said with only two sides, both of which are equal.
It has really become so obvious when discussing policies like Rwanda, where nobody seems willing to address the vital part of any debate - the rights and wrongs of the policy. Not from a practical sense but from a moral sense. When journalism and, by extension, politics stop caring about morality, we find ourselves in a very dangerous place.
I unfortunately think the future of journalism is things like this Substack. Individual journalists who make enough of a name for themselves they can fund their own output, untied to the whims of a larger entity.
I'd also throw in a particular academic who is a pundit and pollster now. He can be any of those things, but he shouldn't get away with being accepted as all three.
One of the most egregious examples of this was in the period, after the referendum, when Michael Gove was back on the backbenches and appeared at least twice on the BBC’s Dateline London, a programme that was explicitly billed as for discussion amongst journalists (mainly foreign correspondents based in London, though sometimes UK journalists). I don’t think it ever had anyone else on who wasn’t a journalist or at least a political commentator in some sense, and I’m sure it never had any other MPs on. They glossed it by saying that he was out of government and ‘also’ a journalist, and was appearing in that capacity, but it was nonsense. It was doubly nonsensical as, at that particular time, most of the political discussion was about Brexit and he was clearly a leading campaigner for it, rather than a ‘mere’ commentator. I actually complained to the BBC at the time, though no effect.
BTW another current example of a journalist turned candidate, apart from Paul Waugh, is Edward Luce, Associate Editor of the FT, who is standing for the LibDems at the next election. (By placing this in the same comment as the above, I’m not suggesting this is improper in the way that the Gove/ Dateline thing was.)
I don't know, I think you're using Waugh as a bit of a straw man for a wider argument here (although the proof of the pudding would obviously be what he would do post-career where he to become an MP) - he seems to have been refreshingly upfront about his intentions and doing something about it. Not that your wider points aren't valid, but without wanting to sound too needlessly cynical, whilst you rightly point out that journalism has been part of a nexus of careers for a certain type of elite male for centuries, have we ever really had the situation where political journalism has operated in the kind of perfectly balanced way you imply would be its ideal type?
I agree. I was surprised by Mr Waugh’s decision until I read his piece which oozed decency and humanity. I say that because it reinforced how differently politician journalists demonstrate their transition between the two roles, like Ronnie Barker in his Ministry of Sexual Equality sketch. I do wonder however, having expressed his understandable rage at the fate of the NHS under the stewardship of the Conservatives, how he can ever return to his Lobby role? But perhaps he realises, like I did when I reluctantly retired earlier than planned from the Civil Service, that it was no longer possible to keep his pen or mouth silent in the face of such behaviour. If his ambition to be Rochdale’s next MP are not fulfilled, I suspect he will turn his skills to other campaigning roles. But I applaud Mr Dunt inviting us to consider just how “neutral” other Lobby Journalists might be. Are they seething like Mr Waugh or slavering at the thought of all those opportunities that await their electoral ambitions at the subsequent General Election?
This is why Starmer's mantra of service is important. It's been wholly lost under this Tory government. Without service being at the centre then, as Dunt implies, you're on the road to autocracy. I'd go so far as to argue we're already part way there with kleptocracy plainly in view as part of that journey.
I would say that we're more than part way there. This Tory government does serve. It serves its own interests only. Ian's point in this article can, I think, be summed up by the call to ban MPs from having second jobs and maybe should be followed by Journalists and Think Tank employees.
That only really works if the Commons becomes a place where there is professionalism and not the amateurs who seem to make up the current crop. Deffo keep hacks out.
Haha well well I knew it wouldn't be long till Waugh started the climb up the slippery poll of politics especially with Labour victory pretty much on the cards sigh its a revolving door from Fleet Street to number 10. They captured this beautifully in the brilliant The Thick of it with the odious MP and his SPAV colleague (the gorgeous Ben Williband and another great actor i cant remember the name of) coming from the Mail to join the coalition. Its why my fave journalists will always be independent at heart if not in publication still and not interested in crossing the threshold from writing the story to being the story. I think the minute you put that political boys club tie around your neck as a journalist you lose your credibility. I love how your on the same publication but can say this on your substack about a fellow colluminist without fear of retribution your 'keeping it real' as the kids say mate.
The merging of the political sphere and the so-called 'fourth-state' is a fact that no one can forget when discussing the current state of journalism. We've reached a point that journalists see themselves as guardians of politics and politicians the guardians of journalism (state-sponsored bailouts increasingly seem to be the only way certain legacy media outlets will survive). Politics and journalism have become a closed circuit, incomprehensible and inaccessible to the majority of 'the public'. I touch on this topic in this article https://atmidnightalltheagents.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=2eypst
Thank you. I've just paid for a subscription (not, alas, at the moneybags level but ....) to this because the cold clear ring of truth is entirely absent from most newspapers these days; even when they do print something approaching the truth, it's generally been curated and tweaked to conform to an agenda.
I'm old enough to remember when the Telegraph was a respectable newspaper whose opinions I usually disagreed with completely but still read because its reporting of the facts was exemplary. Now it's....unspeakable.
A little hazy, this punchy piece, on the history of the press in the UK, which essentially invented the national daily newspaper market. Difficult to agree with the statement that 19th century newspapers were funded/controlled by political parties: the Guardian and The Times both obvious survivors of that era, of which that statement is not true. The 19th century saw a huge boom in newspapers, driven by technology: better/faster typesetting and printing presses; the arrival mid-century of the telegraph, for rapid transmission of stories; and critically the rail network which meant that from the 1850s you could actually produce a national daily paper (helped by a fast-growing retail start-up named WH Smith). Other changes helped - notably soaring adult literacy rates, and the removal of punitive newspaper taxes (originally expressly designed to suppress news publishing).
So the second half of the 19th century saw an entrepreneurial explosion of newspaper titles, which then began to consolidate at the end of that century into the publishing houses that dominated the 20th - Lord Northcliffe, the founder of the Harmworth dynasty which still owns the Mail, buying The Times in 1908, for instance.
I subscribed to the I and find I quite like it. It can’t hold a candle to the type of journalism I see in Byline Times. For truth I mean. I feel like because it doesn’t depend on advertising Byline has more freedom but less reach. I’m appalled by politicians being journos at the same time. I find Substack good for a few independent journalists. As for Paul Waugh, I respect him as a journalist. Not sure yet how I feel about him being an MP.
"The journalist is providing citizens with the tools they need to evaluate the government."
This sums up where the BBC (and others) have lost their way. It is fundamentally dishonest to pretend that politics is a simple matter of he said/she said with only two sides, both of which are equal.
It has really become so obvious when discussing policies like Rwanda, where nobody seems willing to address the vital part of any debate - the rights and wrongs of the policy. Not from a practical sense but from a moral sense. When journalism and, by extension, politics stop caring about morality, we find ourselves in a very dangerous place.
I unfortunately think the future of journalism is things like this Substack. Individual journalists who make enough of a name for themselves they can fund their own output, untied to the whims of a larger entity.
AI Reading of this article:
https://askwhocastsai.substack.com/p/the-political-takeover-over-journalism
I'd also throw in a particular academic who is a pundit and pollster now. He can be any of those things, but he shouldn't get away with being accepted as all three.
Would you be thinking of Matt Goodwin per chance?
One of the most egregious examples of this was in the period, after the referendum, when Michael Gove was back on the backbenches and appeared at least twice on the BBC’s Dateline London, a programme that was explicitly billed as for discussion amongst journalists (mainly foreign correspondents based in London, though sometimes UK journalists). I don’t think it ever had anyone else on who wasn’t a journalist or at least a political commentator in some sense, and I’m sure it never had any other MPs on. They glossed it by saying that he was out of government and ‘also’ a journalist, and was appearing in that capacity, but it was nonsense. It was doubly nonsensical as, at that particular time, most of the political discussion was about Brexit and he was clearly a leading campaigner for it, rather than a ‘mere’ commentator. I actually complained to the BBC at the time, though no effect.
BTW another current example of a journalist turned candidate, apart from Paul Waugh, is Edward Luce, Associate Editor of the FT, who is standing for the LibDems at the next election. (By placing this in the same comment as the above, I’m not suggesting this is improper in the way that the Gove/ Dateline thing was.)
I don't know, I think you're using Waugh as a bit of a straw man for a wider argument here (although the proof of the pudding would obviously be what he would do post-career where he to become an MP) - he seems to have been refreshingly upfront about his intentions and doing something about it. Not that your wider points aren't valid, but without wanting to sound too needlessly cynical, whilst you rightly point out that journalism has been part of a nexus of careers for a certain type of elite male for centuries, have we ever really had the situation where political journalism has operated in the kind of perfectly balanced way you imply would be its ideal type?
I agree. I was surprised by Mr Waugh’s decision until I read his piece which oozed decency and humanity. I say that because it reinforced how differently politician journalists demonstrate their transition between the two roles, like Ronnie Barker in his Ministry of Sexual Equality sketch. I do wonder however, having expressed his understandable rage at the fate of the NHS under the stewardship of the Conservatives, how he can ever return to his Lobby role? But perhaps he realises, like I did when I reluctantly retired earlier than planned from the Civil Service, that it was no longer possible to keep his pen or mouth silent in the face of such behaviour. If his ambition to be Rochdale’s next MP are not fulfilled, I suspect he will turn his skills to other campaigning roles. But I applaud Mr Dunt inviting us to consider just how “neutral” other Lobby Journalists might be. Are they seething like Mr Waugh or slavering at the thought of all those opportunities that await their electoral ambitions at the subsequent General Election?
This is why Starmer's mantra of service is important. It's been wholly lost under this Tory government. Without service being at the centre then, as Dunt implies, you're on the road to autocracy. I'd go so far as to argue we're already part way there with kleptocracy plainly in view as part of that journey.
I would say that we're more than part way there. This Tory government does serve. It serves its own interests only. Ian's point in this article can, I think, be summed up by the call to ban MPs from having second jobs and maybe should be followed by Journalists and Think Tank employees.
That only really works if the Commons becomes a place where there is professionalism and not the amateurs who seem to make up the current crop. Deffo keep hacks out.
Has he? Was his answer truthful, or even the same answer today as yesterday?
You’ve heard the same as I have. Make your own mind up.
Who does Starmer serve might be a better question.
He’s stated the answer to that question.
Couldn't agree with you more Barry
Any examples of politician journalism on the Left?
I guess there was no room to mention Corbyn's advisor Seamus Milne
Haha well well I knew it wouldn't be long till Waugh started the climb up the slippery poll of politics especially with Labour victory pretty much on the cards sigh its a revolving door from Fleet Street to number 10. They captured this beautifully in the brilliant The Thick of it with the odious MP and his SPAV colleague (the gorgeous Ben Williband and another great actor i cant remember the name of) coming from the Mail to join the coalition. Its why my fave journalists will always be independent at heart if not in publication still and not interested in crossing the threshold from writing the story to being the story. I think the minute you put that political boys club tie around your neck as a journalist you lose your credibility. I love how your on the same publication but can say this on your substack about a fellow colluminist without fear of retribution your 'keeping it real' as the kids say mate.
The merging of the political sphere and the so-called 'fourth-state' is a fact that no one can forget when discussing the current state of journalism. We've reached a point that journalists see themselves as guardians of politics and politicians the guardians of journalism (state-sponsored bailouts increasingly seem to be the only way certain legacy media outlets will survive). Politics and journalism have become a closed circuit, incomprehensible and inaccessible to the majority of 'the public'. I touch on this topic in this article https://atmidnightalltheagents.substack.com?utm_source=navbar&utm_medium=web&r=2eypst
Thank you. I've just paid for a subscription (not, alas, at the moneybags level but ....) to this because the cold clear ring of truth is entirely absent from most newspapers these days; even when they do print something approaching the truth, it's generally been curated and tweaked to conform to an agenda.
I'm old enough to remember when the Telegraph was a respectable newspaper whose opinions I usually disagreed with completely but still read because its reporting of the facts was exemplary. Now it's....unspeakable.
A little hazy, this punchy piece, on the history of the press in the UK, which essentially invented the national daily newspaper market. Difficult to agree with the statement that 19th century newspapers were funded/controlled by political parties: the Guardian and The Times both obvious survivors of that era, of which that statement is not true. The 19th century saw a huge boom in newspapers, driven by technology: better/faster typesetting and printing presses; the arrival mid-century of the telegraph, for rapid transmission of stories; and critically the rail network which meant that from the 1850s you could actually produce a national daily paper (helped by a fast-growing retail start-up named WH Smith). Other changes helped - notably soaring adult literacy rates, and the removal of punitive newspaper taxes (originally expressly designed to suppress news publishing).
So the second half of the 19th century saw an entrepreneurial explosion of newspaper titles, which then began to consolidate at the end of that century into the publishing houses that dominated the 20th - Lord Northcliffe, the founder of the Harmworth dynasty which still owns the Mail, buying The Times in 1908, for instance.
I subscribed to the I and find I quite like it. It can’t hold a candle to the type of journalism I see in Byline Times. For truth I mean. I feel like because it doesn’t depend on advertising Byline has more freedom but less reach. I’m appalled by politicians being journos at the same time. I find Substack good for a few independent journalists. As for Paul Waugh, I respect him as a journalist. Not sure yet how I feel about him being an MP.
The UK seems to have a very weak separation of powers in general, if it exists at all.
Government ministers, even the PM, still serve as MPs, muddying the separation between executive and legislative.
It is therefore not surprising that the separation between either of those and the media is also theory rather than practice.
The only pillar of power which is somewhat separated is the judiciary and it is under constant attack by the other three for not falling in line