Three cheers for Tony Blair. In a speech today, he called the British press a “feral beast.” The NYT’s Alan Cowell wonders: “was it justified, as Prime Minister Tony Blair did today, to call the press a ‘feral beast’?” Of course it was, mostly because it is true. The press often treated Blair in a ridiculous manner. Certain British newspapers passionately opposed the Iraq War and did their best to emphasize the mistakes / attacks / deaths as much as possible. If there was good and bad news to report, the bad news was frontpaged, while the good news could be read on page 25, left column, right below “cat eats fish.”
Blair said: “The fear of missing out means today’s media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no one dares miss out.”
Also very true: whenever something happens, the press jumps on it like a couple of jackhals.
Now, before I am sounding like someone who hates the press: the role of the press, in essence, is to report honestly, truthfully and objectively. This means that, on quite some occasions they report things and they ask questions, politicians, especially leaders do not want to be reported and / or asked. If the press is doing her job well, politicians will hate her. When a politician complains about the nature of the press (as long as politicians from all sides complain about it) it is a good sign.
Principally that is.
The real problem is that many journalists do not really keep their prejudices to themselves. And not only prejudice is driving them, they also have to ‘score’ time and time again. Blair:
[T]he 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. 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 clamor, can get noticed. Impact gives competitive edge. Of course, the accuracy of a story counts. But it is secondary to impact.
The media’d better take the criticism to heart. Blair is quite right (except for the ‘victim’ part of course). The media caused this. The media is responsible for it. The media can change it.
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