{"id":470,"date":"2007-06-12T06:58:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-12T12:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=470"},"modified":"2007-06-12T06:58:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-12T12:58:00","slug":"an-audience-with-tony-blair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/06\/an-audience-with-tony-blair\/","title":{"rendered":"An audience with Tony Blair"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
A<\/span>s the photo above aptly demonstrates, I\u2019m completely at home with using my BlackBerry<\/span>\u2019s camera to newsgather. Or not. The middle blur is Tony Blair<\/span>, fresh from the latest of his suite of valedictory speeches – this one about the media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister attacked \u201cthe confusion of news and commentary\u201d in journalism. \u201cOpinion and fact,\u201d he said, \u201cshould be clearly divisible.\u201d Well, the same could be said for the confusion of public information and political marketing that comes out of government departments. Mr Blair did however hint at a weapon that could be used to ‘restore’ the relationship between press and politicians – regulation.
Here\u2019s the key prescriptive passage: <\/p>\n

The regulatory framework at some point will need revision. The PCC [UK Press Com plaints Commission] is for traditional newspaper publishing. OFCOM [UK Broadcast regulator] regulate broadcasting, except for the BBC, which has its own system of regulation. But under the new European regulations all television streamed over the internet may be covered by OFCOM. As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television, it becomes increasingly irrational to have different systems of accountability based on technology that no longer can be differentiated in the old way.<\/p>\n

How this is done is an open question and, of course, the distinction between balance required of broadcasters but not of papers remains valid. But at some point the system is going to change and the importance of accuracy will not diminish, whilst the freedom to comment remains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah yes. Well to display my darker colours, I\u2019ve written in favour of regulation<\/a> before, and watched as politicians (and everybody else) remained indifferent. So now Mr Blair and I can form a party of two. Raising regulation is of course guaranteed to get a response from what, despite convergence, I think we can still call the print media.<\/p>\n

Trevor Kavanagh<\/a><\/span> of the Sun<\/span><\/span> is not convinced: <\/p>\n

He\u2019s sowed the seeds for a change in media regulation which is not government policy at the moment … That\u2019s very worrying. The media, whatever its flaws, needs to be free. If we can\u2019t be belligerent now and then we aren\u2019t doing our jobs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nor is Independent<\/a> editor Simon Kelner<\/span><\/a>: <\/p>\n

Mr Kelner also took issue with the prime minister\u2019s suggestion that the regulatory framework of the media needed attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe seems to be suggesting greater regulation for newspapers in line with the broadcast media. How does this square with his avowed belief in a free and vibrant press?,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If there is some kind of regulation, then the regulated need rewarding – public service cash perhaps to sweeten their commitment to fact. Roger Alton<\/span> endorsed some of the speech, without referring to the regulatory element.<\/p>\n

But, more important than journalists in this equation, government needs to have a Chinese wall erected between its facts and opinions. If the well remained unmuddied, then journalism could be free to offer all the opinion it wanted, and the public could source directly (with just a link) the information they needed to weigh it.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I thought the most interesting thing Blair had to say was about the manic speed of decision-making and campaigning and how little reflection accompanies it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the photo above aptly demonstrates, I\u2019m completely at home with using my BlackBerry\u2019s camera to newsgather. Or not. The middle blur is Tony Blair, fresh from the latest of his suite of valedictory speeches – this one about the media. The Prime Minister attacked \u201cthe confusion of news and commentary\u201d in journalism. \u201cOpinion and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,50],"tags":[265],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-journalists","tag-journalism-values"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}