‘Bring Back Spin’ plead media
After a decade of criticising Labour for selective leaking and excessive media management, three journalists have apparently pleaded for the return of spin, according to Yvette Cooper, the Housing Minister.
Political journalists don’t know what is going to be in announcements to Parliament each day any more until MPs are told in the Commons as Gordon Brown has reduced the practice of leaking all announcements the day before.
He hasn’t ended the practice altogether. He now personally leaks in advance the announcements of others in the government if he feels like it, but adopts the principled approach that Parliament should hear it first for all other ministers.
According to Yvette Cooper, in the absence of leaks in advance, journalists are having to resort to what they did before new Labour and spin came on the scene.
The technical term for that, apparently, is ‘idle speculation’.
This willingness to change a long held view the second that it becomes slightly inconvenient brings to mind an old Fleet Street rhyme (yes it is that old) that summarises the media highly effectively in the UK.
“You cannot bribe nor twist
Thank God, the British journalist.
For knowing what he will do
Unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”