The Daily Novel

Tony Blair started his next war today in the closing days of his premiership. He slammed into the assembled media at a Reuters’ meeting in London for the spin it puts on the news, the failure to distinguish between fact and comment, the pursuit of a few very sensational controversial stories, for fostering cynicism about the motives of politicians, many of whom are in politics to serve the people rather than feather their own nest, and above all on the chase for 24 hour news, with journalists constantly being urged to chase the story that has not yet been broken, instead of reporting properly on the story they are already working on. You can read the full story here.

It takes a spinner to spot the spin. And of course, Tony, with his usual still boyish charm, admitted in his disarming way that he had colluded in this culture. Blair surged to power with the help of spin and his high priest, Alastair Campbell, the former political editor of the Daily Mirror (and, as regular readers of this blog will know, my neighbour in Gospel Oak, who plays the bagpipes at the annual street party.)

But his analysis is perceptive and what he is pointing out is what has been worrying journalists, and journalism teachers, for many years. Where he misleads is by timing the deterioration to the timetable of his own rise to power. While history will certainly declare that Blair has outshone any former Labour Party leader by getting the right-wing press to eat out of his hand, it does not mean we have to be mesmerised by his judgment which is, like the judgment of many human beings, overly influenced by his own concerns.

The deterioration in journalism standards which Blair identifies actually began when Lord Northcliffe invented the popular press and published the first issue of the Daily Mail in 1896. Almost everything that Tony Blair complains of was invented by Northcliffe in the UK and Pullitzer and Hertz in the US who were his contemporaries.

Blair, because he is an intelligent and well-read young man, obviously knows some of this, because he mentions in his speech that the press he has known has always been rather bad. He is trying to explain why it is now worse than it was when he came out of nappies and began to read newspapers. And he misleads by focussing on his own period.

The new low of Blairite spin began, not in 1997, but in 1979, when Thatcherism swept the land. Thatcher, like Blair a fervent believer in not being taken in by spin herself, thanks to her daily conversations with the God in her head, was also a pragmatist. So she employed her own high priest of spin, Bernard Ingham, a former liberal minded Guardian journalist, who became rather right wing as he grew older, and used all his journalistic skills to promote Margaret Thatcher and her peculiar brand of born again capitalist fundamentalism.

Ingham basked in the reflected glory. So much so that when my students plied him with a few serious questions, when he talked to them in the Thatcher years, he bullied them. How dare they question him? He was here to teach them about the world as it was.

Blair also distorts his own message by singling out for the full force of his ire, The Independent. As the paper’s editor, Simon Kelner, argues in his reply to Blair, the departing premier’s anger against the The Independent, rests mainly on its trenchant and consistent opposition to the Iraq war.

In fact, what is wrong with The Independent is not its opposition to the Iraq war, it is that it has been desparately trying to survive in a world dominated by commercial interests as a serious newspaper, by trying to re-invent serious journalism.

Instead of clearing the front page for the latest supected paedophile or the young female teacher allegedy having sex with one of her eager male pupils, it clears it for serious issues. But it does not deliver, what The Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph does. Pages of reporting and comment on news around the world. Because it cannot afford to. It began before Wapping when a rather boring financial journalist, Andreas Whittam Smith, had a big idea. Disgusted with the deterioration of The Times, he persuaded City bankers to give him the money to start a serious newspaper, which would give the readers the facts and informed comment. And a newspaper which would by journalists thanks to the new technology.

Despite its initial success the venture failed, because of Wapping, the destruction of the print unions, and the triumph of the true son of Northcliffe, Pullitzer and Hertz, Rupert Murdoch. Who with his financial power crucified The Independent and even made the survival of The Guardian difficult by slashing the price of The Times, which he was well able to do, because he made his money from The Sun and the News of the World.

The Independent would have gone bust, had it not been rescued by Tony O”Reilly, a former international rugby player and owner of many Irish newspapers, who wanted a foothold in serious British journalism. For several years now, the journalists on The Independent have had to try to bring out a serious newspaper on a very limited budget. O’Reilly has ploughed millions into it, but since he is not super rich, his pocket is limited, so the staff may well have to be trimmed even further.

Making the task of producing a good newspaper ever more difficult. Because reporting is very expensive. Particularly if you want to report on serious news around the globe.

I do not like The Independent’s tabloid front page, and it has not brought financial salvation. But what The Independent has been doing at the same time is hugely commendable. They give their reporters licence to write at length and depth about the important issues of the day. And in a way that informs readers.

The more successful newspapers (and this includes The Guardian as well as the right wing majority) limit their stars to a thousand words. Which is not enough if you are dealing with a complex subject. But it the age where everyone is supposed to have the attention span of a child watching CeeBeebies.

Some of these long pieces by Independent reporters have given me an extra insight into issues of the day. And they should be encouraged. And the successful newspapers should rethink their strategies. 800 words is not enough for some subjects. And the drive to be entertaining can drive out serious discourse.

Yes, Tony, I agree that our press and broadcasting has deteriorated and that this is damaging to our society. But I think that the problem rests in the huge power of the big media empires, which you, Tony Blair, have courted in order to get power.

We need to limit their power. And we need to challenge the current convention, that the readers of The Sun, and even The Times, now have an attention span so small they they need a tabloid with lots of pictures, to tell them what is happening in the world today.

And to help them understand it, which is what Kelner’s Independent does very well when it gives its reporters a chance to tell the full story of some particular event.

Newspaper editors, television producers, etc are dominated by the world of Northcliffe and his son Murdoch in which they have been brought up. Yes, human beings are interested in sex. And a lot of the stuff on the internet is plain porn.

But the overwhelming majority of the stuff on the internet is much more like this blog. And millions of people around the world are reading stuff like this.

Despite the continual bombardment from entrepreneurs pedalling their porn and telling every man that he can get it up if only he buys their Viagra.

Samuel Johnson got it wrong, although he produced a very good dictionary. When he said that man was innocently employed when making money. There is nothing innocent about rich men, and those who would like to be rich, pushing porn.

There is nothing innocent about newspaper proprietors, who proclaim that they are providing what the ordinary people want. Sex and over-simplification. As if it is only people with a university education who are interested in things other than sex and sensationalism.

Come to think of it, most of my current friends spend a lot more time thinking about sex than do the working class folk with whom I was brought up.