Media tips from a departing premier: Keep news and views distinct

There's a market in providing serious, balanced news.

By Tony Blair

from the June 19, 2007 edition

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London - My principal reflection ... is that the relationship between politics, public life, and the media is changing as a result of the changing context of communication in which we all operate. No one is at fault. This change is a fact, but it is my view that the effect of this change is seriously adverse to the way public life is conducted and that we need at the least a proper and considered debate about how we manage the future in which it is in all our interests that the public is properly and accurately informed....

The relations between politics and the media are, and are by necessity, difficult. It is as it should be. The question is: Is it qualitatively and quantitatively different today? And I think, yes....

The media world, like everything else, is becoming more fragmented, more diverse, and above all transformed by technology.... Newspapers fight for a share of a shrinking market.... News is becoming increasingly a free good, provided online without charge.... The news schedule is now 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and it moves in real time....

In the 1960s, believe it or not, the government would sometimes, if there was a serious issue, have a Cabinet meeting that would last over two days. It would be laughable to think you could do that now without the heavens falling in before lunch on the first day....

...How many excellent second reading speeches or committee speeches are covered? Except when they generate controversy, they aren't. If you are a backbench [Minister of Parliament] today you learn to give a good press release first and a good parliamentary speech second.... The reality is that as a result of the changing context in which 21st [century] communications operate, the media are facing a hugely more intense form of competition than anything they have ever experienced before. They are not actually the masters of this change, they are in many ways the victims.

The result, however, is a media that increasingly and to a dangerous degree is driven by impact. Impact is what matters.... It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unraveling standards ... making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be, but an impulsion towards sensation above all else....

The audience needs to be arrested, held, and their emotions engaged; something that is interesting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked.

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