Some key quotes : Things harden within minutes. I mean you can't let speculation stay out there for longer than an instant. I am going to say something that few people in public life will say, but most know is absolutely true: a vast aspect of our jobs today - outside of the really major decisions, as big as anything else - is coping with the media, its sheer scale, weight and constant hyperactivity. At points, it literally overwhelms. ... If you are a backbench MP today, you learn to give a press release first and a good Parliamentary speech second.
This is true in america too, and not just because of the need to play the media, but also due to politics. If you blindside your opponents with something in the media, they have a harder time responding. The result is a media that increasingly and to a dangerous degree is driven by "impact". Impact is what matters. It is all that can distinguish, can rise above the clamour, can get noticed. Impact gives competitive edge. Of course the accuracy of a story counts. But it is secondary to impact. It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else
Let's bold that out : "Accuracy ... is secondary to impact." We've been commenting on this for years. I've laid some of the blame on the free market nature of the media, but only insofar as it is only capable of responding to that which the consumer wants most, and consumers (american and british consumers at least) want drama and shock and viciousness. Until people demand, with their wallets, accuracy, fairmindedness and rational debate from the media, we won't get it. What depresses me is that I'm not confident that people actually do want that, meaning the market won't respond, and things will continue to get worse. The Right has spent a lot of money carrying out a war against calm, reasoned debate, shrewdly using framing and meta-attacks to make anything less than certitude come off as weakness, to make changing one's mind an indicator of political opportunism and to make everything, EVERYTHING a matter of moral absolutism. The Left has done their part by permitting themselves to be trapped by these tactics, but also by taking stances on media and a technology that make them look hypocritical, even to their ostensible supporters. I see no solutions on the horizon, easy or otherwise. What creates cynicism is not mistakes; it is allegations of misconduct.
In this I partially disagree with Blair. Mistakes are one thing, misconduct is another. What *really* creates cynicism is when mistakes are covered up, or treated as if they aren't mistakes. Both US parties are guilty of this, though I hardly think I need to point out that this administration in particular can't even be considered outside a framework in which mistakes simply CAN NOT exist. *That* is misconduct, by definition. Of course, the media and the people again share the blame here, because we no longer tolerate mistakes. If a politician makes a genuine apology for a mistake, their opposition snaps it up as ammunition, and the media and the public start calling for their head. It's not a civilised environment in which genuine mistakes and honest apologies are well received. In this, I agree with Blair. This element of our current situation turns *everything* into presumptive misconduct, to the extent where real misconduct is lumped in with shit that should have merited a simple apology, or less, and been forgotten. When everything's a crisis or emergency or moral indiscretion, nothing is. The signal gets lost in the noise. But the reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told. In every other walk of life in our society that exercises power, there are external forms of accountability, not least through the media itself. So it is true politicians are accountable through the ballot box every few years. But they are also profoundly accountable, daily, through the media, which is why a free press is so important. I am not in a position to determine this one way or another. But a way needs to be found. I do believe this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair.
Hear hear. I only wish I knew how to start. [UPDATE :] On the matter of the blogosphere's reaction, i hadn't read anything by anyone else before writing my above response, but now have and agree that they're mostly over-reacting, or else reacting to an article which made the whole business seem more sinister than it was meant to be. Sadly, No! had lambasted Blair for it last night, but has since apologized and effectively retracted their statements saying : Thanks to Codepope in the comments for pointing out that the Guardian did a really crappy job of reporting Blair’s remarks. His actual speech, posted in entirety here, is vastly saner and less wingnutty than what had been reported. And ironically, the Guardian’s awful coverage of his speech goes quite a long way toward proving his actual point
Indeed. Full text of Blair's speech on politics and media | Uk News | News | Telegraph |
