More often than not today's election campaigns are fought out on a battleground which is being determined and controlled almost entirely by the news media. Newspapers, radio, television -- and now websites on the Internet -- provide the stage on which the politicians have to perform and try to win the attention of an increasingly sceptical, and sometimes hostile, electorate. Political public relations advisers and journalists tend to be locked together in an ever-closer embrace, a relationship which can lead to unhealthy collusion and a lowering of editorial standards.
Political parties and the news media need each other more than ever. Politicians have few other effective ways to communicate with the public except through the news media and, for their part, journalists know they cannot ignore the drama and significance of an election campaign. After all the proposition -- Who Governs the Country? -- is a question which is of vital importance to most readers, viewers and listeners. The prospect that political power might change hands -- and therefore put the future direction of the country at stake -- is enough to excite any journalist but it also provides a temptation for media proprietors to interfere.
The British experience is that while newspapers still retain considerable influence in shaping the daily political agenda, it is still what voters see and hear -- on television and radio -- which is likely to have the greatest influence in determining which political leader and which party they are most likely to support. The impact of websites -- and especially web logs where voters can participate and express themselves -- is being felt more and more. For example, in the last British general election in May 2005, the Internet was the first source of political information for a third of all young people.
That proportion is bound to increase and the emergence of yet another battleground for the political parties reinforces the pressure on political propagandists to make sure they know how best to compete for attention. There is a paramount need, therefore, for political public relations to keep abreast of the ways in which the media is expanding and adapting. Recent trends in Britain are not encouraging: media proprietors are changing their political allegiances with greater frequency than before and invariably for crude advantage; they trade the political support of their newspapers in return for a commercial benefit.
Political interference by the proprietors has resulted in political journalists tending to become far more partisan and opinionated than in previous years. Not unnaturally public relations advisers have sought to exploit this trend. Increasingly they work in league with favoured newspaper journalists with the aim of trying to dictate the news agenda and in that way they hope to persuade television and radio broadcasters to follow the lead taken by the press. Reviews of newspaper coverage feature prominently on British TV and radio and it is the press which all too often provides ideas, topics and questions for phone-ins and talk shows.
The long-standing British compromise is to have a free press -- free to support any of the political parties -- and a broadcasting industry of television and radio which is regulated and which must provide balanced coverage and equal access for the main political parties. There are other important and well established British safeguards: broadcasters must not express their political opinions on air; the political parties cannot advertise on television and radio but they are allowed to transmit a limited number of election broadcasts under a strictly-controlled process.
Unfortunately this tried and tested system is not as robust as it used to be. Competitive pressures within the media have resulted in a lowering of editorial standards; there seem to be few, if any, checks on the downward drive for sensationalism in Britain's popular newspapers; and the manipulation of the media, and especially broadcasting, is a growing cause of concern. At the root of this unease is the power exercised by media proprietors such as Rupert Murdoch. His company holds a forty per cent share of the UK national newspaper market.
In recent elections the four Murdoch newspapers -- the Sun, News of the World, The Times and Sunday Times -- have all recommended their readers to vote Labour. So anyone in political PR in the UK knows that their dealings with political journalists will be influenced -- perhaps even fixed -- at a far higher level than that at which they usually operate. More often than not the deciding factor dictating what the newspaper says will be the strength of the relationship between the party leadership and the media company and not an independent editorial assessment. However, Rupert Murdoch like the other proprietors, is fickle and somewhat footloose with his political favours.
Until 1997 when he switched to supporting the Labour Party led by the Prime Minister Tony Blair, his papers had previously backed Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party. Now we sense that the political allegiance of the Murdoch press might be on the move again, now that Conservatives have a new and younger leader in David Cameron. As in previous general elections, we journalists know what the deciding factor will be: not political journalism, but the business interests of the Murdoch media companies.
It was Mrs Thatcher and the Conservatives who gave Murdoch the go ahead to start his Sky satellite channel, which is largely free of the controls which govern other television channels. In return for the support which newspapers like the Sun have given to Tony Blair, his Labour government has stood aside and looked the other way as Sky has built up its monopoly for televising Britain's Premier League football matches and continued to engage in the practice of predatory pricing, pitching the cost of the Sun, The Times etc just below the price of competing newspapers. Murdoch now has a new commercial agenda: he wants to introduce into the UK a politically opinionated television channel like his Fox Channel in the US; he would also like to see the BBC cut down to size. If the Conservatives, under their new leader David Cameron, synchronised their political agenda, with his commercial agenda, who knows, the Murdoch papers might change their political allegiance. To understand the scale of this influence, look at the Sun's front pages during last year's general election.
The Sun sells 3.2 million copies a day, it claims nine million readers. When the Sun decides which political party to support its choice is front page news. In April last year, a month before the 2005 general election, the Sun sought to suggest that its decision-making process was as significant as the Vatican's selection of a new Pope. Instead of white smoke emerging, the chimney at the headquarters of News International was photographed billowing out red smoke (the Labour Party's colour) and the headline said: "Sun smoke goes RED for Blair...One last chance". (Sun April 21, 2005).
A month later, on the very eve of the general election, the Sun published an exclusive interview with Tony and Cherie Blair. This was a "nudge, nudge...wink, wink" piece of reporting with Mrs Blair giving highly suggestive and extremely revealing answers about her husband. The front page headline gave a flavour: "We get deep down and personal with the Blairs...Why Size Matters". The text said: "Cherie says Tony needs a BIG one...a big majority!' And inside, alongside a photograph of a bare-chested Prime Minister, Blair was quoted as saying, in response to a question about his fitness, that he was "ready for it...five times a night". (Sun May 4, 2005). What more could the Prime Minister and his wife possibly have said to titillate the Sun and win the newspaper's support? In my view, the interview revealed the depth to which the Blairs would sink to retain the backing of the Murdoch press.
Next day on Election Day, the Sun's front page showed super-imposed photographs of the Prime Minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer outside the doors to 10 Downing Street. The headline could not have been clearer in its advice to readers: "Vote Labour Today...Come on you Reds". (Sun May 5, 2005).
The Sun's support for the Prime Minister gives an answer to the question: How could the Prime Minister get re-elected if 60 per cent of the public thought he had lied over the war against Iraq? Therein lies the real significance of Murdoch's support for Prime Minister Blair and President Bush in the war against Iraq. Unlike all other national newspapers, the Sun is unquestioning in its support for British troops -- for "Our Boys" -- fighting in Iraq. Almost every other day there are pictures and features supporting the troops. At Christmas, the famous Page Three topless models are sent out to cheer up the forces; Blair is photographed regularly with soldiers. Of all the headlines supporting "Our Boys", perhaps this one gives a flavour of the Sun's dedication to the part Britain's armed forces have played in the removal of Saddam Hussein. The Sun reported exclusively on the arrival in Iraq of the famous Black Watch regiment. The headline was a typical endorsement of the rightness of Britain's military mission in Iraq: "We beat Napoleon, Kaiser and Hitler...it's just another job". (Sun, October 25, 2004).
The danger facing the democratic process in Britain is that sensational newspapers -- wielding their big cheque books to buy up stories -- use their coverage not just to support the party of their choice, but also to denigrate, even destroy, political opponents. And it is that power which Opposition parties fear most: the use of dirty tricks to damage political candidates.
So the British experience is that when planning an election campaign, when thinking through how to launch policies, our highly-politicised newspapers remain an important target for public relations officers. If they can get their supporters in the press to drive the news agenda that can often have a much wider impact through follow-up reports and discussion on television and radio.
I believe that the way in which the two main political parties in Britain have tried to manipulate the media market place has undermined public confidence in the political process. The one bright hope on the horizon is that a new generation of young journalists -- working on news sites on the Internet -- does seem to have higher editorial standards.
I am impressed by the way many news websites -- I am not talking about opinionated, interactive web logs -- do tend to report news in a straightforward way, differentiating between fact and opinion. When I meet website journalists, not just in Britain but elsewhere in Europe, I am impressed by how keen they are to produce accurate reports, to source their information and to give proper attribution for quotations. I think that therein lies the future direction for political PR.
Instead of what we see in Britain, where political propagandists trade information exclusively with favoured journalists, there should be a recognition by political parties that they should seek to exploit the power of the Internet by providing all journalists with the same information at the same time. I think that would be one way to drive up editorial standards. If all journalists knew they were getting the same information instantaneously, it would be harder to slant or fabricate stories, there would be no hiding place, because the information can be checked out so quickly.
I would go further and say that this should become a guiding principle for any government -- that information from the state should be released simultaneously to all journalists, there should be a level playing field, and information should not be released selectively from the state for the advantage of the party in power. I think it is unrealistic, at least in Britain, to expect journalists or the media proprietors to make the first move, it has to be the state -- and employees of the state should understand that releasing information selectively for political advantage does undermine the political process.
__This article is the text of Nick Jones address to 'A complicated, antagonistic and symbiotic affair: journalism, public relations and their struggle for public attention' a conference in Lucerne on March 18, 2006 organised by MAZ The Swiss School of Journalism, Lucerne and Facoltà di scienze della comunicazione, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano.__
More often than not today's election campaigns are fought out on a battleground which is being determined and controlled almost entirely by the news media. Newspapers, radio, television -- and now websites on the Internet -- provide the stage on which the politicians have to perform and try to win the attention of an increasingly sceptical, and sometimes hostile, electorate. Political public relations advisers and journalists tend to be locked together in an ever-closer embrace, a relationship which can lead to unhealthy collusion and a lowering of editorial standards.
Political parties and the news media need each other more than ever. Politicians have few other effective ways to communicate with the public except through the news media and, for their part, journalists know they cannot ignore the drama and significance of an election campaign. After all the proposition -- Who Governs the Country? -- is a question which is of vital importance to most readers, viewers and listeners. The prospect that political power might change hands -- and therefore put the future direction of the country at stake -- is enough to excite any journalist but it also provides a temptation for media proprietors to interfere.
The British experience is that while newspapers still retain considerable influence in shaping the daily political agenda, it is still what voters see and hear -- on television and radio -- which is likely to have the greatest influence in determining which political leader and which party they are most likely to support. The impact of websites -- and especially web logs where voters can participate and express themselves -- is being felt more and more. For example, in the last British general election in May 2005, the Internet was the first source of political information for a third of all young people.
That proportion is bound to increase and the emergence of yet another battleground for the political parties reinforces the pressure on political propagandists to make sure they know how best to compete for attention. There is a paramount need, therefore, for political public relations to keep abreast of the ways in which the media is expanding and adapting. Recent trends in Britain are not encouraging: media proprietors are changing their political allegiances with greater frequency than before and invariably for crude advantage; they trade the political support of their newspapers in return for a commercial benefit.
Political interference by the proprietors has resulted in political journalists tending to become far more partisan and opinionated than in previous years. Not unnaturally public relations advisers have sought to exploit this trend. Increasingly they work in league with favoured newspaper journalists with the aim of trying to dictate the news agenda and in that way they hope to persuade television and radio broadcasters to follow the lead taken by the press. Reviews of newspaper coverage feature prominently on British TV and radio and it is the press which all too often provides ideas, topics and questions for phone-ins and talk shows.
The long-standing British compromise is to have a free press -- free to support any of the political parties -- and a broadcasting industry of television and radio which is regulated and which must provide balanced coverage and equal access for the main political parties. There are other important and well established British safeguards: broadcasters must not express their political opinions on air; the political parties cannot advertise on television and radio but they are allowed to transmit a limited number of election broadcasts under a strictly-controlled process.
Unfortunately this tried and tested system is not as robust as it used to be. Competitive pressures within the media have resulted in a lowering of editorial standards; there seem to be few, if any, checks on the downward drive for sensationalism in Britain's popular newspapers; and the manipulation of the media, and especially broadcasting, is a growing cause of concern. At the root of this unease is the power exercised by media proprietors such as Rupert Murdoch. His company holds a forty per cent share of the UK national newspaper market.
In recent elections the four Murdoch newspapers -- the Sun, News of the World, The Times and Sunday Times -- have all recommended their readers to vote Labour. So anyone in political PR in the UK knows that their dealings with political journalists will be influenced -- perhaps even fixed -- at a far higher level than that at which they usually operate. More often than not the deciding factor dictating what the newspaper says will be the strength of the relationship between the party leadership and the media company and not an independent editorial assessment. However, Rupert Murdoch like the other proprietors, is fickle and somewhat footloose with his political favours.
Until 1997 when he switched to supporting the Labour Party led by the Prime Minister Tony Blair, his papers had previously backed Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party. Now we sense that the political allegiance of the Murdoch press might be on the move again, now that Conservatives have a new and younger leader in David Cameron. As in previous general elections, we journalists know what the deciding factor will be: not political journalism, but the business interests of the Murdoch media companies.
It was Mrs Thatcher and the Conservatives who gave Murdoch the go ahead to start his Sky satellite channel, which is largely free of the controls which govern other television channels. In return for the support which newspapers like the Sun have given to Tony Blair, his Labour government has stood aside and looked the other way as Sky has built up its monopoly for televising Britain's Premier League football matches and continued to engage in the practice of predatory pricing, pitching the cost of the Sun, The Times etc just below the price of competing newspapers. Murdoch now has a new commercial agenda: he wants to introduce into the UK a politically opinionated television channel like his Fox Channel in the US; he would also like to see the BBC cut down to size. If the Conservatives, under their new leader David Cameron, synchronised their political agenda, with his commercial agenda, who knows, the Murdoch papers might change their political allegiance. To understand the scale of this influence, look at the Sun's front pages during last year's general election.
The Sun sells 3.2 million copies a day, it claims nine million readers. When the Sun decides which political party to support its choice is front page news. In April last year, a month before the 2005 general election, the Sun sought to suggest that its decision-making process was as significant as the Vatican's selection of a new Pope. Instead of white smoke emerging, the chimney at the headquarters of News International was photographed billowing out red smoke (the Labour Party's colour) and the headline said: "Sun smoke goes RED for Blair...One last chance". (Sun April 21, 2005).
A month later, on the very eve of the general election, the Sun published an exclusive interview with Tony and Cherie Blair. This was a "nudge, nudge...wink, wink" piece of reporting with Mrs Blair giving highly suggestive and extremely revealing answers about her husband. The front page headline gave a flavour: "We get deep down and personal with the Blairs...Why Size Matters". The text said: "Cherie says Tony needs a BIG one...a big majority!' And inside, alongside a photograph of a bare-chested Prime Minister, Blair was quoted as saying, in response to a question about his fitness, that he was "ready for it...five times a night". (Sun May 4, 2005). What more could the Prime Minister and his wife possibly have said to titillate the Sun and win the newspaper's support? In my view, the interview revealed the depth to which the Blairs would sink to retain the backing of the Murdoch press.
Next day on Election Day, the Sun's front page showed super-imposed photographs of the Prime Minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer outside the doors to 10 Downing Street. The headline could not have been clearer in its advice to readers: "Vote Labour Today...Come on you Reds". (Sun May 5, 2005).
The Sun's support for the Prime Minister gives an answer to the question: How could the Prime Minister get re-elected if 60 per cent of the public thought he had lied over the war against Iraq? Therein lies the real significance of Murdoch's support for Prime Minister Blair and President Bush in the war against Iraq. Unlike all other national newspapers, the Sun is unquestioning in its support for British troops -- for "Our Boys" -- fighting in Iraq. Almost every other day there are pictures and features supporting the troops. At Christmas, the famous Page Three topless models are sent out to cheer up the forces; Blair is photographed regularly with soldiers. Of all the headlines supporting "Our Boys", perhaps this one gives a flavour of the Sun's dedication to the part Britain's armed forces have played in the removal of Saddam Hussein. The Sun reported exclusively on the arrival in Iraq of the famous Black Watch regiment. The headline was a typical endorsement of the rightness of Britain's military mission in Iraq: "We beat Napoleon, Kaiser and Hitler...it's just another job". (Sun, October 25, 2004).
The danger facing the democratic process in Britain is that sensational newspapers -- wielding their big cheque books to buy up stories -- use their coverage not just to support the party of their choice, but also to denigrate, even destroy, political opponents. And it is that power which Opposition parties fear most: the use of dirty tricks to damage political candidates.
So the British experience is that when planning an election campaign, when thinking through how to launch policies, our highly-politicised newspapers remain an important target for public relations officers. If they can get their supporters in the press to drive the news agenda that can often have a much wider impact through follow-up reports and discussion on television and radio.
I believe that the way in which the two main political parties in Britain have tried to manipulate the media market place has undermined public confidence in the political process. The one bright hope on the horizon is that a new generation of young journalists -- working on news sites on the Internet -- does seem to have higher editorial standards.
I am impressed by the way many news websites -- I am not talking about opinionated, interactive web logs -- do tend to report news in a straightforward way, differentiating between fact and opinion. When I meet website journalists, not just in Britain but elsewhere in Europe, I am impressed by how keen they are to produce accurate reports, to source their information and to give proper attribution for quotations. I think that therein lies the future direction for political PR.
Instead of what we see in Britain, where political propagandists trade information exclusively with favoured journalists, there should be a recognition by political parties that they should seek to exploit the power of the Internet by providing all journalists with the same information at the same time. I think that would be one way to drive up editorial standards. If all journalists knew they were getting the same information instantaneously, it would be harder to slant or fabricate stories, there would be no hiding place, because the information can be checked out so quickly.
I would go further and say that this should become a guiding principle for any government -- that information from the state should be released simultaneously to all journalists, there should be a level playing field, and information should not be released selectively from the state for the advantage of the party in power. I think it is unrealistic, at least in Britain, to expect journalists or the media proprietors to make the first move, it has to be the state -- and employees of the state should understand that releasing information selectively for political advantage does undermine the political process.
__This article is the text of Nick Jones address to 'A complicated, antagonistic and symbiotic affair: journalism, public relations and their struggle for public attention' a conference in Lucerne on March 18, 2006 organised by MAZ The Swiss School of Journalism, Lucerne and Facoltà di scienze della comunicazione, Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano.__