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

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

from the June 19, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

And the consequences of this are acute. First, scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down. News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light. Second, attacking motive is far more potent than attacking judgment.... Third, the fear of missing out means that today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack.... Fourth, rather than just report news, even if sensational or controversial, the new technique is commentary on the news being as, if not more, important than the news itself.

So for example, there will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying as there is coverage of [him] actually saying it. ...[T]his leads to a fifth point, which is the confusion of news and commentary. Comment is a perfectly respectable part of journalism, but it is supposed to be separate. Opinion and fact should be clearly divisible....

...And the final consequence of all of this is that it is rare today to find balance in the media. Things, people, issues, stories, are all black and white. Life's usual grays are almost entirely absent. Some goods, some bad, some things going right, some going wrong. These are concepts alien to much of today's reporting. It is a triumph or a disaster, a problem is a crisis, a setback, a policy in tatters, a criticism, a savage attack....

Now is this becoming worse? Again I would say yes. In my 10 years [as prime minister] I have noticed all these elements evolve with ever greater momentum.

Now 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 here is also the opportunity. ...[T]here 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 news being real news is not.

The media ... need to reassert their own selling point in this new communication age, the distinction between news and comment. ...I do believe this relationship between public life and the media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair. The damage saps the country's confidence and self-belief, it undermines its assessment of itself and its institutions, and above all it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions in the right spirit for our future....

• Tony Blair is the British prime minister. These are excerpts from a speech he gave at Reuters headquarters in London on June 12.

1 | Page 2