John Major on the Press

An interesting article in this morning's Observer featuring an interview with former premier John Major on why:

'I shouldn't have read the papers so much when I was PM'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2025843,00.html

It is an abridged version of a published piece in the British Journalism review but here are a few highlights:

He wishes to make a number of points about what he sees as the way forward for newspapers and the broadcast media. He wants the press to accept a voluntary, independently supervised code of conduct,

The story that appeared to break the camels back appeared in the Telegraph which reported unfavourable comments by Mrs Thatcher about her successor.It offended Major so much that Gus McDonald rang the paper to ask how a conservative daily could act:

"being so beastly to a Conservative Prime Minister "

He denies that he regularly stayed up at night, nervously awaiting the arrival of the first editions - 'all that stuff was overdone' - and, in his defence, says that the volatile political situation he inherited, with his government effectively in a minority on the European issue, meant that newspapers had influence on Conservative backbench opinion, to which he had to pay regard.


'I have been reading the press more regularly than others over 50 years and it seems to me that there are things that have changed in the press that have changed its character.'

the existence of too many national newspapers has led to greater competition for sales, which has produced sensationalism and thus reduced their overall standard.

He thinks 24-hour news channels have made the straightforward reporting of facts into what he calls 'stale buns' for a TV audience that has been listening to the same news for 18 hours, and that consequently newspapers contain less news and more comment.

He doesn't think that journalists check their facts in the manner they once did. He worries about the degree of unattributable comment used as though it were fact. And then there is the harassment of celebrities, people such as Kate Middleton, who are targeted by paparazzi hanging around outside restaurants on the off-chance of a photograph they can sell.

I like the best of the British press. The best of the British press is very good. I dislike the fact that it's let down by the worst of the British press. The press could choose to do this [agree a code of conduct] if the press wished to do so.

On new labour press relations he says:

New Labour's policy of replacing career civil servants in the public information service with political partisans was 'entirely improper'.

The Blair government politicised press relations within the government and in such a way that those whose words were previously unquestionably accepted could no longer be believed without corroboration.

'The sight of allegedly sophisticated politicians parroting complete tripe trivialises and demeans government and it has to be stopped. It's played a significant part in public disillusionment with politics and has led to the absurd situation where more people vote for Strictly Come Dancing than voted in the general election.'

And on Blair's courting of Murdoch

'I think it's demeaning for elected Prime Ministers to keep in with unelected men who happen to be proprietors.'

I have no doubt that Major has a serious gripe against the press,he was with reflection treated quite badly by them because he refused to court them.the articel makes some interesting points but displays an air of sour grapes