An observation on recent events
The fact that Labour and the LibDems were involved in negotiations all weekend seems to have come as a total surprise to political journalists. Shouldn't this be the occasion for some serious carpetings by their editors? People like Nick Robinson, Adam Boulton and Andrew Rawnsley don't cover stories and they don't have specialist analytical skills. Their entire value-add is meant to be that they are "in the loop" and connected to all the big important players. If something as important as this can be happening without them knowing about it, that's actually very embarrassing.
Maybe they have been. Watching Nick Robinson and Adam Boulton completely lose their cool has been most entertaining. Their indignation and powerlessness has been highly entertaining.
ReplyDeleteThe coverage generally has been pretty poor. Political journalists who seemed to be unaware of Sinn Fein's existence, or that the SDLP take the Labour whip. Currently there's yards of coverage that seems to be totally unaware of the LibDems triple lock.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what they thought Labour and the LibDems would have been doing. Clegg is in a bidding war, which seems glaringly obvious, but I suppose the concept is unfamiliar to people whose job consists to having a drink with their mates and writing about it.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is the number of mainland journalists who imagine the DUP would be happy to roll over and die for the Tories without getting anything back. Why?
Two observations gained from working on corporate transactions (albeit in a recondite technical role and not directly involved in negotiations):-
ReplyDeletea) From first principles, all kinds of conference calls/late night meetings would have been going on from first thing Friday.
b) Journalists are told about how negotiations are going only when it's useful as a negotiating tactic - no side needed to use the press as leverage until this week, therefore nobody told a journalist anything. Um, simples.
It's a Golden Economic Legacy!
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10108391.stm
Well perhaps not, but then again neither was 1997, and yet the Economist (among many) now just state that phrase as fact, rather than the political slogan it is.
Marina Hyde agrees:
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle was that so few had seen it coming. Seemingly every pundit and reporter had spent the day either quacking that the Con-Lib negotiations were looking very positive, or warning that we must avoid upsetting the markets
and not inaptly continues:
prompting one esteemed colleague to remark that if we were take this mollycoddling of the markets' obsession with stability to its logical conclusion, perhaps we shouldn't have elections at all.
Also, serious leakproofing effort from the Lib Dems. Not bad for first timers.
ReplyDeletePS, I note that John Rentoul was one of the first people claiming to be on the left to attack. I wonder what the other Decents have been saying.
If something as important as this can be happening without them knowing about it, that's actually very embarrassing.
ReplyDeleteEither that, or they chose not to mention it for the sake of some kind of bullshit decorum.
Seriously, though, I saw that kind of stuff go on -- at a safe distance -- in student politics, and I have no illusions that the mechanics of double-dealing are any different for grown-ups. In fact, I can remember the moment it dawned on me that this was Politics As She Is Done, and it probably had something to do with Hague's grinning face on a photo.
I don't think they knew. That might explain some of the anger from people like Boulton and Robinson. God knows why. The outrage was ludicrous, though it seemed real. I mean obviously the LibDems were going to talk to Labour privately. Who was running the Conservative strategy? The boy scouts?
ReplyDeleteno side needed to use the press as leverage until this week, therefore nobody told a journalist anything
ReplyDeleteyes exactly, that's the understood convention when reading the business press. But the Robinsons, Rawnsleys, Cricks, etc all give this impression that they're players, rather than just sitting round being spoonfed. Compare them to someone like Robert Peston, who regularly breaks stories that other people are actually surprised by, and it's quite embarrassing.
I suppose this means that their nearly total lack of LibDem sources isn't so much of a problem, as they didn't actually have any sources of any value anyway.
@Matthew
ReplyDeleteHow do you compare on that time and today?
Yes, my impression was that political journalists had "contacts" and "sources" and "sources close to..." and "a member of the cabinet" etc etc.
ReplyDeleteAs Daniel points out, it turns out they are used, abused, manipulated and cut out of the loop when occasion demands.
Hum. Just like the rest of us. :-(
Max Hastings' memoirs of his time as Telegraph editor are very good on how abruptly his social circle among the great and good contracted once he resigned from the ES...
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