A conversation with Tony Blair
June 12th, 2007 · 1 Comment
That was the title of the first in the “Newsmaker” series of lectures co-hosted by Reuters and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The Prime Minister presented some reflections on the nature of leadership and public life in a media age.
The Prime Minister’s 35-minute speech has been condensed in a 4-minute video clip here. A full transcript of the speech can be found here. The main Reuters article on the event is here. A quick lesson in how journalism works can be had by simply reading the full speech and then see what parts made it into the final article and into the 4-minute clip. The Prime Minister talked about the increasing importance of “impact” (i.e. to get audience attention) in today’s media landscape, and the comparison of the full speech with the article and the clip provides an excellent example of how selection to maximise impact is done (we should also note that the news media focus on “impact”, on the simplified, the sensational, the attention-getting, is not new – it has been an integral part of the news genre since the mid-to-late 19th century).
To me, the elements highlighted in the article were not the most interesting nor the most problematic parts of the Prime Minister’s speech. My main issue with the Prime Minister’s assessment of the relationship between media and politics (again, read his full speech) was the repeated references to “the changing nature of communication”, and the way this “changing nature” was described: “The reality is that as a result of the changing context in which 21st century communications operates, the media are facing a hugely more intense form of competition than anything they have ever experienced before. They are not the masters of this change but its victims.” This seems like quite a strange assessment from someone with as much experience with the media as the Prime Minister.
Clearly, media organisations are in themselves agents of change, and furthermore make choices about how to cope with change (in the form of convergence, 24/7 news cycles, diminishing audiences etc) that are anything but “natural” or “inevitable”. Yet the persistent impression I got from the Prime Minister’s speech (read it and see if you agree with me) was that “the changing nature of communication” was more or less beyond the control of both journalists and politicians, an unstoppable evolution driven by technology and competition. This is simply not the case – the changing nature of communication (and I do agree with the Prime Minister that the nature and context of communication is changing) cannot exist “outside” the realms of politics and journalism. In fact, the opposite is true: politics and journalism together help create this “changing nature of communication”.
Of course the media landscape is changing – profoundly changing, even. But absolving the media institutions of any conscious agency (or “blame”, if you want to use a terminology the Prime Minister was keen to avoid) in this change is being overly charitable – to say the least. Media organisations are the drivers of these processes of change, not the victims of them.
Tags: UK · Newspapers · dailies · Television · Events · New media · Online news · Politics
1 response so far ↓
Sarmila Bose // Jun 13, 2007 at 1:35 am
Hi Henrik,
One point that struck me was Mr Blair’s claim that what he was saying would not go out to the general public as a whole (meaning, the public would not have the opportunity to judge his speech on its merits), but “in snippets”, “heavily interpreted” by the journalists sitting in the audience.
What was striking about this claim was that it was completely untrue.
According to Reuters, Mr Blair’s own office was webcasting his speech live. Within a very short time, the entire text was available not only on his official site, but also on news sites such as the Reuters site, alongside the “news” report on his speech. All the elements that Mr Blair was talking about with regard to the changing nature of communication – online technology, speed, reporting in real time, etc – actually work in his favour, giving him a much fairer chance than ever before to place what he has to say, unmediated, in the public domain, for anyone to access, anywhere in the world. Equally, the British press has the same means available to hold people in power - like Mr Blair - to account.
Another remark that stood out was Mr Blair’s singling out for criticism a particular paper – the Independent, referring specifically to its Middle East coverage (Robert Fisk? As an interesting aside, Mr Fisk just delivered a scintillating speech to a spill-over audience on 7 June as the 32nd George Antonius Memorial Lecture at the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College).
Statements such as “Newspapers fight for a share of a shrinking market” are of course a reflection of Mr Blair’s (understandably) parochial vision with regard to the media – the market is expanding in some parts of the world! But all markets are subject to the technological revolution in communication. And one can’t help thinking that by referring to the media as “a feral beast” that “hunts in a pack”, in a speech specifically on the media, it is Mr Blair who intended to make a particular “impact”! However, to the extent that ‘feral’ means ‘untamed’, or ‘gone wild’ after being domesticated, it may suggest that in spite of Mr Blair’s best efforts, there’s hope yet for the British media!
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