24 Hour News

Yesterday I spent an hour or two wandering around Whitehall watching all the fun. In this picture you can see Newsnight’s Michael Crick, scanning the horizon looking for fresh victims!

A few moments after this picture was taken Crick was running off trying to be the first to get to the Tory negotiating team of Letwin, Hague, and Osborne, in order to get a few questions in. He made it, but they didn’t give much away. On the right of this picture you can also see the BBC’s Nick Robinson.

It was interesting to see the press pack in action. If you are teaching the media it’s worth considering how 24 hour news changes the relationships between media, public and politicians. Does it actually represent a shift in the balance of power, and if so, who gains? The media might argue that the immediacy and the continual scrutiny is in the public interest - politicians have to be ready to justify anything and everything to prying journalists at any time. And whereas prior to 24 hour news, politicians could shelter and construct carefully worked out views and statements for public consumption, maybe now they are less able to hide. On the other hand, politicians can work the media scrum to their advantage. The game of ‘spinning’ takes on a new dimension; indeed, things which appear spontaneous may not be quite what they seem. Impression management has to be raised to new levels in the age of 24 hour media. And as Manuel Castells argues, all this simply helps the media portrayal of politics become more like drama. Indeed, being in the scrum - or on the edges of it - yesterday, was exciting. But was it politics? The drama in the scene above, was in seeing the main players arrive on stage. The content of what the politicians said did perhaps take a second place to the more exciting issues of who was in, who was out, who is going to get what job. Is the media making politics the continuation of entertainment by other means? Well, I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but it’s not a completely frivolous argument.