The newspaper is dying, shouting about "responsible publishers" and "conscientious advertisers" doesn't change a thing

It's an old joke that the point of journalism is to fill in the gaps between the adverts. And there has always been a tension, sometimes even a conflict, between the newsroom and the ad sales teams that mostly pay the wages of those journalists. Every paper will have a story of how an advertiser pulled copy because of a story, every editor will have witnessed a raging red-faced sales director screaming how that 'scoop' meant that he's lost thousands in sales - "I was that close to a long-term deal" the SD will shout while the editor waffles about journalistic integrity.

Journalists don't like advertising despite (or maybe because of) working in a business that's dependent on those ads for its existence. Journalists also don't like competition for that advertising (especially from things they don't consider to be media let alone journalism). Here in a classic of self-importance is James Mitchinson, the editor of struggling newspaper, The Yorkshire Post:

"I have long been convinced that the indiscriminate nature of the programmatic advertising business model makes it vulnerable to exploitation. It has caused a race to the bottom, with some publishers – not all – and editors gaming the business model with their commissioning decisions, rather than thinking about what is in the public interest."

There are some suppositions here that are worth noting. We get an attack on the advertising business model and Mitcheson talks about "...outlets that seek to commoditise audiences in order to exploit an indiscriminate paymaster..." on the presumption that advertising decisions are in any way indiscriminate when any ad man will tell you that the opposite is true. And it's hard to accept without a wry smile the suggestion that "quality" newspapers just do "honest journalism" and haven't ever been bottom feeders.

We get the sense in Mitchinson's comments, the use of terms like "conscientious advertisers" and "responsible publishers", that he seeks to divide publishing into good and bad - we can see some of his targets clearly in this part of the commentary: "...the hateful, partisan, agenda-driven Goliaths who think nothing of demonising immigrants, legitimising domestic abuse and scandalising the courts...". But who is Mitcheson, or even a "responsible publishers' network", to say what content the public should or shouldn't consume? And why, since Mitchinson thinks the power is in their hands, should advertisers trash their marketing models to suit what a group of essentially self-interested publishers decide is "responsible" or "conscientious"?

What Mitchinson, and so many others, fail to realise is this journalism they lay claim to ("...public interest journalism; journalism done for the betterment of the communities it serves...") only exists so long as people - directly or through advertising choices - continue to consume the product, the content, those editors put before them. And, right now, the eyes of the majority are turned away from local papers like the Yorkshire Post because it offers little they want. Even those "agenda-driven Goliaths" that Mitcheson hates so much are losing customers, struggling to keep advertisers and wondering how much longer their business model ('producing content to get people to see the advertisements') can continue.

It's unclear, other than seeking to create what in other business contexts would be an illegal cartel, what Mitcheson wants to achieve. We hear of "public interest" (as if that's something that can be defined glibly by a bunch of newspaper editors) and "editorial principles" (as if editorial strategies should should ignore economics) but the telling comment lies at the end: "...improve the whole of the internet and make a wholesome contribution to society."

Mitcheson, like most of the traditional media, is fearful of how platforms like Facebook and Google have changed the way in which people consume news (plus, of course, how the advertisers have shifted spending from black and white copy in the Yorkshire Post to animated and engaging promotions online). To counter this, the fearful journalists have created a bogeyman built from fake news, targeted advertising and "toxic" content which they wave at each other, at the government and at the public in the manner of an old fire-and-brimstone preacher threatening his elderly, half-asleep congregation with eternal damnation.

Dying industries, and traditional, especially local, news journalism is a dying industry (and has been for at least two decades), always look to cartels, regulation and the heavy hand of government to protect then in their dotage. This doesn't better the "...communities it serves and therefore society as a whole..." but is seeking moral enforcement in the cause of economic interest, the very thing Mitcheson claims his crusade is directed against. The problem is that this strategy, while it might stave off the last day, doesn't begin to resolve the problem with the regional paper business model. The Yorkshire Post is neither fish nor fowl - not a local paper and not a national paper - has a daily circulation not much over 10,000, and competes for advertising with national and local competitotrs as well as with other advertising platforms such as Facebook and YouTube (or the advertisers own carefully curated website promoted via Google).

Mitcheson wants advertisers to deliberately buy less impactful and effective advertising so as to privilege his particular view of "responsible" journalism but completely fails to make a case beyond the purely emotive "I want to help make the change; protect quality journalism; improve the whole of the internet and make a wholesome contribution to society". It's not for Mitcheson and a few mates to define quality journalism, dictate what is or isn't good on the Internet, or what constitutes wholesomeness in society.

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Tax the poor - the nannying fussbucket's favourite policy

From Chris Snowdon comes this:

Is there anything more nauseating than the sight of billionaires buying up newspaper space to lobby for higher taxes on poor people?

This is the final sentence in an article taking apart an advertorial in the Daily Telegraph paid for by Bill and Melissa Gates. The article in question was absolutely shocking - 'brain dead' I called in on Twitter - and, as Chris points out, pulls out all the usual lines from the fussbuckets about evil corporates, advertising and how the answer lies in more controls, more regulations and in making disapproved food more expensive.


We should also, I suspect, be a little bit worried at very rich people buying newspaper space to promote a political ideology and doing so in a way that pretends it is proper news coverages not advertising.

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Corbyn's Labour really does hate the idea of a free press and free speech

Asked whether a Labour government would break up media monopolies, he said: "Yes. We are developing a media policy which would be about breaking up the single ownership of too many sources of information, so that we have a multiplicity of sources. And actually promoting co-operative ownership and access, including local TV and radio stations and newspapers like The Morning Star."

There are many things he says that I find chilling but this statement from Jermey Corbyn is a terrifying attack on the free press and free speech. I know you're all going to talk about how Rupert Murdoch is incredibly evil because he owns lots of media and doesn't vote Labour. I know so many want to pretend - against all the evidence to the contrary - that Murdoch's businesses have some sort of monopoly over the media and the the man himself is Henry H. Potter spinning his scrurvy webs like some sort of sinister spider.

You are wrong. If there is a media monopoly in the UK (and I don't think this is remotely the case) then it is the BBC not News International. This isn't an attack on Aunty but simply an observable truth - in terms of what people out there are watching, the BBC remains the dominant media organisation and this applies especially to news.

What Jeremy Corbyn, in his pretty typical hard left way, is saying is that the private ownership of media with the aim of turning a profit results in distorted news. The argument will run on to suggest that monopolies in media are therefore a problem and need to be broken up. Yet the UK does not have a media environment that features any sort of monopoly (unless you look at the BBC, of course). If you focus just on national newspapers this still isn't true even though Rupert Murdoch 'controls' a goodly chunk of them. And more to the point those newspapers no longer represent people's preferred source of news - we've the TV, the radio, our lap-tops and increasingly assorted apps on our smartphones. Twitter and Facebook are probably more important as news sources than The Times or The Guardian these days.

No, the real reason Jeremy Corbyn wants to control the press is because - as he noted just before that comment above in the Morning Star - it is critical of what his 'caring, sharing new politics' is about. So just like his pals on Bradford council wanting to ban folk they disagree with, Corbyn wants to cripple a diverse media environment through threats of 'break-up', seizure and control. We are reminded again that Labour really does hate the idea of a free press.

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(Dis)owning the news...

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There was a time when I bought two newspapers every day. In the morning I'd buy the Daily Telegraph in the shop over the road, walk to Kent House station and complete the crossword on the journey to London Bridge (the aim was to get it done before reaching Herne Hill but this seldom happened). On the way home I'd buy the London Evening News and do its three crosswords - the worst of these was the so-called children's crossword.

I write this because, back then, other than the evening news on the TV, that was the sum total of our news consumption. Almost everyone bought one or other of the national papers and in doing so maintained a huge industry of paper boys, paper stalls, newsagents, journalists, advertising executives and sales people. Not to ignore the legendary - or should I say notorious - printers with their closed shops and 'spanish practices'. Living in South London I knew a few printers - my friend in the YCs, Ian was from a whole family of Fleet Street printers (Tory voters every one). They all had private print shops and, when they needed some extra cash, would do a shift or two on the Sundays - whether this actually entailed any work was something I never fully discovered.

Newspapers were big business and they were important. Ownership mattered and those papers could and did set the national agenda, influence the outcome of political debates and make a difference to the way people voted. And the legacy of all this remains - the media is still slightly obsessed with the ups and downs of the newspapers especially that part of the media not owned by Rupert Murdoch or Lord Rothermere.

The most recent manifestation of this obsession is the idea that we can crowdsource the funds to buy one or two of the national titles off Rupert Murdoch:

Hardly surprising, then, to see the groundswell of support for a new campaign, “Let’s Own the News” which launched this week and is inviting pledges from people who like the idea of buying The Times and The Sunday Times from Rupert Murdoch.  Backed by The Young Foundation, Let’s Own the News say that “80% of the national newspapers we read are controlled by 5 families, this is not a free press and it undermines our democracy. Our vote is worth little if a few people control the information we read. ”

So far the campaign has raised a little over £250,000 which probably isn't enough to buy the two titles right now. However,  setting aside the vanity of this project, the truth about news - or rather newspapers - is that ownership is of little relevance. We the people have, in the main, disowned newspapers.

Back in the 1970s sales for daily newspapers were around 16m and for Sunday newspapers around 20m - this is more-or-less one per household (there were about 19m households in the UK in 1975). By way on contrast, in 2000, there were 25m households and sales for daily and Sunday papers stand at around 10m apiece. This suggests that at least half - and probably more - of households did not buy a newspaper at all. This trend continues.

A hard business look at the Times and Sunday Times might suggest that these titles simply aren't viable (or likely to be viable). It makes sense for a large conglomerate to own them - they provide gravitas, have a brand that can be used elsewhere and provide an influential platform for opinion. On their own - without the protection of News Corp or a deep pocketed private trust such as the Guardian's owner - the prospects for creating a sustainable and profitable newspaper business is, to put it mildly, pretty slim.

But that's the business of the folk trying to buy the newspaper. What bugs me slightly is their argument that the change is needed to reduce the concentrated control of the news and hence the news agenda. The argument that the newspapers are owned by only 5 families completely misses the point. The real problem isn't with newspapers but with the organisation that controls nearly 40% of media output in the UK and which has a wholly disproportionate influence over the news agenda.

Changing the ownership of the Times wouldn't make a jot of difference - fewer than a million folk buy the papers and, since they disappeared behind a paywall, they don't get the millions of online visits that the Telegraph, Mail and Guardian enjoy. But reforming the BBC would make a difference. Our news consumption is via the TV, computer and mobile phone and it is here that the change must come. Put simply the case for having a state broadcaster that dominates UK online news and is funded via a poll tax is now almost impossible to justify. Rather than trying (and probably failing) to raise £100m to buy the times, the Young Foundation would serve the cause of a more open news economy much better by campaigning to scrap the licence fee.

As consumers we have disowned newspapers, they are increasingly marginal and it is hard to see a future for them in their traditional role or format. The future of news creation and distribution is online and mobile and right now the BBC is making it hard for choice and independence to succeed in this new news market. If we want to reduce the concentration of media power then the place to start is with the BBC not the Times.

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On the power of the media...

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We are reminded by Alex Massie:

Speaking of which, we might, when considering over-mighty media moguls remember that Murdoch is not the main player in the British media landscape. That honour belongs to the BBC. Nearly six times as many Britons watch BBC1 than read The Sun. The BBC’s website has more readers than any Murdoch title. And across all platforms, online, on television and on radio, the BBC does more to shape and mould public attitudes than any other media enterprise. This is so even if it also often takes its lead from the newspapers.

This is a central - and important - point in an excellent article on the lynch mob chasing Rupert Murdoch.

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Advice to the Internet from an old mail order guru

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I was reading an incredibly complacent interview with Alan Rushbridger, the Guardians editor. There was a hint - indeed the very faintest of hints - that the newspaper's on-line business model might not be a sturdy cash generator:

I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. I think it’s better if you embed yourself in this new world of information and work out what it is what we can do that they can’t do and vice versa. If at some point in the future it looks as though some form of payment is going to work, we’re not going to set ourselves against it

And here lies the rub, not just for the Guardian but for much of the 'world wide web' - Rushbridger touched on it by saying:

There would have been no point in 1997 or 2000 saying that we don’t like the idea of this all being free...

At which point I recalled some sage words from a real life mail order guru - my former colleague John Hinchcliffe. We were discussing the strategy (or rather John was discussing and I was doing what might be called 'intelligent listening') options faced by the Freeman's brand following its acquisition by (I think) Littlewoods. Now Freeman's were the only big book mail order company that didn't give new agents a (significant) free gift with their first order and John was considering whether to bring the brand in line with the main Littlewoods brand. This brought the observation:

Once you start giving away free gifts you can't stop

The Internet wasn't listening to John (perhaps it should have been) but this is precisely the problem that we face - not just news providers but social media platforms, music sellers, book retailers and any number of folk supplying software stuff. We gave stuff away for free. As Rushbridger argues (somehow I suspect this is more post hoc rationalisation than the honest truth) this was about embedding yourself in the wonders of the on-line world.

However, it was still giving stuff away for free. And we now have a generation of web wanderers who assume that it's all free and that this is the right way for it to be. Weaning them off that free stuff (especially when so many bely their degree level qualifications and actually believe it is free) is a massive challenge.

John was right. Giving away free stuff was always risky and the Internet is about to discover this truth!

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The Peterborough Pravda. Is this what Louise Mensch wants from local media?

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Yesterday, Louise Mensch – the MP for Corby – argued that local newspapers are an essential cog in our democracy:

She called on the government to conduct a review into "local democracy and the local press" to see if there might be some sort of direct or indirect subsidy that could support the sector.

She attacked plans for local TV stations, which will compete against newspapers, because the proposed funding plans include using part of the licence fee as well as BBC content.

Now there are a few obvious things that might be said about Mrs Mensch’s suggestions not least that Tory MPs calling for business subsidies is a wholly new experience for this very long-standing Tory member.

However, at the heart of this isn’t the question of whether we have a local press – in my view we have as vibrant a local debate as we’ve had in a very long while. But here in Bradford very little of that debate is down to the local evening paper.

Local papers have declined, many have merged, closed or become mere shadows – more advertising sheets that newspapers. And that decline continues – think for a second or two where you go to look for a job, a car, a house or the cinema listings? In times past you bought the local rag on the appropriate day and looked in the class ads. Now you use your lap top or your iPhone – tomorrow you’ll be using the telly in your living room.

Local newspapers have become ever more reliant on the money that local councils spend – the statutory notices, job ads and theatre listings. Without this cash, many more local papers would go to the wall. Maybe this would be a loss but it is the market that is killing these papers not the choices or decisions of local councils. People no longer buy the evening paper – 30 years ago the penetration of the York Evening Press was up at around 80%. Hardly a house in the City didn’t receive the paper. Today that paper sells around 25,000 copies each day (as it happens about the same as Bradford’s Telegraph & Argus). The Doncaster Star sells fewer than 3,000 copies.

It seems to me that, for all her good intentions, Mrs Mensch is railing against the wind – for sure, stopping councils from producing their own free newspapers and not using the license fee to support local TV might slow the decline a little. But the decline will continue for the simple reason that people no longer buy the local paper and local businesses no longer advertise in the local paper. And while this is happening local papers reduce their editorial staff – I fear that many will simply be desk-bound churners of press releases (which isn’t why anyone went to journalism school) – to the point where they simply don’t have the resource to cover stories.

However, public subsidy – using taxpayers’ money to stop local papers closing – seems like a recipe for a supine, state-directed newspaper. Something of a Pravda of Peterborough or Isvestia of Ipswich – regurgitating the tractor stats produced by the local authorities and printing without question or challenge the words of the local MP. A ghastly shade of the challenging, offending and investigating local paper of legend.

Maybe that’s what Mrs Mensch wants but for me, I’ll take my changes with bloggers, Facebook and citizen journalism. That might just be the better future don’t you think?

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The slow death of newspapers...

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This morning, stood on the platform at Green Park tube station, my wife and I happened to chat about the state of the newspaper business - like you do! I commented that it wasn't as simple as saying that the web would kill newspapers - the real killer would be the smart phone.

So no surprise the read this:

Pew research has a new survey showing that tablets and smart phones are now 27% of Americans' primary news source. The overwhelming share of this is phones, not tablets; and a reasonable view says this will rise to 50% in three years.

Why on earth should I pay over good money to buy a newspaper to read on the train when I can get up to the minute news from the BBC or whoever on my phone? Now I may have a problem with the BBC exceeded its remit by pushing aside commercial news production on-line but there's no doubt that mobile technology and TV/web convergance will completely transform the way in which we consume information, entertainment and spend our money.

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Labour's still wedded to the license state

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The bizarre polity that is modern India was - under its then perennial Congress Party rule - described as the 'license raj":

This is when India got its License Raj, the bureaucratic control over the economy. Not only did the Indian Government require businesses get bureaucratic approval for expanding productive capacity, businesses had to have bureaucratic approval for laying off workers and for shutting down. When a business was losing money the Government would prevent them from shutting down and to keep the business going would provide assistance and subsidies. When a business was hopeless an owner might take away, illegally, all the equipment that could be moved and disappear themselves. In such cases the Government would try to keep the business functioning by means of subsidies to the employees. One can imagine how chaotic and unproductive a business would be under such conditions. 

Every economic act, every profession, every industry acts solely on the basis of licenses granted by government. Not only was this corrupt but it crippled the Indian economy for a generation.

This lesson in failure - with India falling ever further behind places like South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and, latterly, China - is still ignored by social democrats. Ignored by those who see the purpose of the state as the direction of individual actions to a greater good - or rather to the preferences and interests of the political class.

Such a man is Ivan Lewis MP, the Labour culture shadow - Mr Lewis wishes to license journalists:

Lewis will suggest that newspapers should introduce a system whereby journalists could be struck off a register for malpractice.

Not only is this illiberal - but then we expect that from Labour politicians - it is stupid and enforceable only by arbitrary power. It would represent the first step towards the social democrat establishment controlling the output of the press, a big stride towards the hounding of journalists for the grave sin of criticising Labour politicians. And it is wrong.

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The Guardian are in it for the money, you know!

Yesterday the Guardian, behaving exactly as you would expect a struggling business to behave, shut down its ‘Guardian Local’ operation – or rather ‘experiment’:

The Local project has always been experimental in both concept and implementation. We've learned a lot from the beatbloggers, under the expert guidance of Sarah Hartley. We have also learned from the local communities who got involved with telling their stories. And using this we have continually refined our approach over the past year.

As an experiment in covering local communities in a new way, it has been successful and enlightening. Unfortunately, while the blogs have found engaged local readerships and had good editorial impact, the project is not sustainable in its present form.

Since the Guardian is losing loads of money (and wants to keep expensive London-based writers on its books), we shouldn’t be surprised by this decision – this ‘cut’. Nevertheless, the squeals of pain were heard, how could the Guardian do this? How could the cuddly, woolly-lefty, caring, sharing Guardian close down this wonderful community resource?

Here’s a reminder:

“The Manchester Evening News and its sister titles have made a huge contribution to the fortunes of the Group for the best part of a century. GMG would like to pay tribute to all the staff for their hard work and achievement in a sector dealing with structural change as well as economic downturn.

“GMG is mandated to secure the future of the Guardian in perpetuity, and we have a strong portfolio which has to be in the right shape to achieve that goal. The Group board and the Scott Trust have made the decision to sell in light of these strategic objectives.”

The Guardian severed its historic connection to Manchester, pulled out from local journalism and closed its Northern operations purely and simply to provide cash to prop up the ailing national title. The ‘experiment’ of Guardian Local was nothing to do with journalism or community but an endeavour aimed at spreading the Guardian brand. Its purpose was to make money for the Guardian, it didn’t so it is closed down.

It was never community journalism.  To do that we’d have to heed Mike Chitty’s words:

At some point we have to recognise that change that is prompted from outside, that is funded by someone else, that delivers someone else’s policy goals or answers someone else’s questions is really unlikely to provide us with any hope of transformation.

At some point we have to recognise that for any real long-term success we have to start from where WE are, and work with what WE have got, and break this dangerous habit of relying on external ‘benevolence’.

The Guardian is just a business. It has no interest in Leeds beyond the story and, of course, the cash.

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Proposals on council publicity are to protect local papers from competition not to save costs - the TPA (and Eric) are wrong

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Much though I am a fan of the Taxpayers’ Alliance and recognise that there are clear needs for restraint over public spending, the organisation is wrong about Local Council marketing – what they prefer, wrongly, to call ‘publicity’. Here’s their line:

Councils are supposed to provide services for the taxpayers who pay for them; it should go without saying that this does not include self promotion.

The TPA – like Eric Pickles, it seems – seem obsessed with the minutiae of spending rather than its purpose. And, while this isn’t the substance of my defence of local council marketing, it’s hard to find fault in the logic of Margaret Eaton’s argument:

‘If the Department for Communities and Local Government was truly committed to localism it would not be introducing draconian rules dictating to councils how often they are allow to share information with residents.’

For central government this attack on communicating with residents represents two things – an easy headline (ironic given the issue being marketing) and the chance to deliver on a stupid promise made in opposition. I wrote back then about the issue:

Now local councils have realised that communicating with the public - a duty of theirs - is not well served by relying on local papers that two-thirds or more of local residents don't read. These Councils produce their own newspapers - Bradford does this with the (multi-award winning) Community Pride.

The rules proposed by the government represent a big win for poor quality local papers and do not in any respect represent value for money to local councils. There is no doubt that producing your own information newspaper and taking advertising to ameliorate the cost is a far more cost-efficient vehicle than buying space in local newspapers. Yet that is what the government proposes:

Local authorities should not publish or incur expenditure in commissioning in hard copy or on any website, newsletters, newssheets or similar communications which seek to emulate commercial newspapers in style or content. Where local authorities do commission or publish newsletters, newssheets or similar communications, they should not issue them more frequently than quarterly, apart from parish councils which should not issue them more frequently than monthly. Such communications should not include material other than information for the public about the business, services and amenities of the council or other local service providers.

Nobody is suggesting that local councils turn themselves into newspaper publishers – and I don’t know of any council that does. The real thrust of this requirement is to protect local newspapers – many of which have come to rely on council advertising.

The revised Publicity Code contains specific guidance on the frequency, content and appearance of local authority newsletters, newssheets or similar publications. The Department considers that the Publicity Code, rather than competition legislation, is the right vehicle for imposing tougher rules to stop unfair competition by local authority newspapers because the issues involved go beyond the purely economic considerations of, for instance, council newspapers diverting revenue from paid advertising away from local newspapers.

The proposed Code of Practice demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of marketing, presents a wholly unwarranted attack on local authority communications and wholly fails to realise the limitations of local newspapers as means of communicating with all residents in a given authority area.

I find it odd that the TPA focuses on what – in most cases – is a more efficient use of limited budgets for marketing rather than on the real waste in local government communications. Councils employ armies of press officers, in house lobbyists and policy advisors whose many purpose is to ensure that the press coverage for the authority is good (and features prominently the leaders and his or her pals). Local council newspapers are an efficient, low cost and flexible means of reaching local communities – something local papers used to do but really don’t do anymore (for example the Bradford Telegraph & Argus typically reaches around 10% of the City’s population – the most recent circulation data is 28,839 in a District with an adult population of nearly 500,000).

Given this fact – even factoring in weekly papers covering Keighley & Ilkley – it seems that the need to reach the whole population is simply not going to be served by our local newspaper group (and remember it's a monopoly as all these papers are owned by newsquest). Yet – ostensibly to protect such papers – the Council is constrained in the number of occasions on which it can speak to the whole population.

In truth this code of practice is poorly structured, ill-thought out and creates a straw man by blaming local councils for the near terminal decline of daily local papers. Quite simply it is wrong, the TPA is wrong to support it and Margaret Eaton (and the LGA) is right to oppose it.

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What are you looking at?

Once again the world (or rather what the BBC and Guardian choose to call the world) has erupted into a spasm of indignant, righteous screams about "phone hacking". Every has-been politician and forgotten celebrity is hastening to the nearest lawyer claiming they've been "hacked" and that this is a gross interference in their privacy. The media will love it, the celebrities will love it, the BBC will get the chance to be all smug and pompous about Rupert Murdoch and the world's real news stories will get relegated to secondary pages.

It really annoys me that this episode - a sordid chapter in the hideously sordid world of the mass media (and please don't try to tell be that BBC and Guardian journalists haven't been partial to the odd piece of illicitly obtained celebrity or political gossip - of course they have) - has meant we are not looking in the right places, talking about the right things. While the BBC regales us with the evils of Murdoch on every bulletin, we're missing the robbing of savings through inflation, the upheaval in the Maghreb as governments totter before the mob, floods and famine - the real world news.

Our understanding of the world. The task of providing information to the people that the BBC supposedly cares about. This is being sacrificed on the altar of the Corporation's campaign to protect its market share from BSkyB and News International. this isn't about the politics of Westminster, it's about a great corporate battle between these two big players in UK media. I know what I'm looking at.

What are you looking at?

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Whose fault is it?

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Well it’s the most important question, isn’t it? All those things happen – from the deepest tragedy to head-in-hands farce – and we are concerned with fault. Nothing can occur without some call for enquiry, investigation, exposure and – in the end – blame. Whose fault is it? Who is responsible? Which head should we impale on a pole?

We pick up the papers, turn on the radio, watch the telly – and what do we get? A shallow, accusatory, offensive culture of finger-pointing. We are not interested in what should be done to put things right – if that can be done. We care not one jot for the sensitivities of those suffering. We just want to see someone nailed to the door with a notice of blame and responsibility.

After many years of watching Newsnight almost religiously I realised that the character of the programme reflected a rotten, stinking and unpleasant truth about us all. We were enjoying watching a cynical journalist asking “when did you stop beating your wife” questions of politicians, pundits and other scum who crossed his path. We were not presented with an exploration of the truth but with an exercise in tripwires and elephant traps – an interview the sole purpose of which was to catch out the interviewee and make the interviewer look clever.

I don’t watch Newsnight any more.

I stopped reading newspapers when I realised – from bitter personal experience – that almost nothing contained therein was accurate, well-researched or informing. The journalist takes just one interest in what we have to say – the single line, the accusation, the plea, the blaming of others. That is the story – whether it be tragedy or low politics, show business or the life of a child. Today news reporting – just like our politics – is a sub-branch of the entertainment business. And what we really like is to see someone else squirm – to point our accusatory finger and say ‘there’s the person to blame.”

I turned to the on-line world – to the cornucopia of wonders that is the Internet. Perhaps there we will find something of what was lost. But not surprisingly that world is also filled with the casting of aspersions, with bullying, with the idle accusation easily made and above all with the laying of blame. Each day I read the same stuff – pointing fingers at one or other person for their supposed blameworthiness, endless calls for enquiry, for legal action and for people’s lives to be destroyed. All on a whim and at the touch of a button.

In all this sport – this festival of personal attack and accusation – we have lost sight of some of the really important things. If I lose my job, I can thrash around looking for someone else to blame for my predicament – the boss, the management, the economy, the Government. It’s a natural response – quite understandable in its way – but of no value to me or my family. My concern should be with what I do tomorrow not with why yesterday went wrong. Let’s suppose I can find someone to blame – where does that get me? I still have no job.

Don’t get me wrong I do care about responsibility. I think we should admit to our mistakes. And, on occasion, it is proper that those mistakes are punished. But let’s get a little balance? Let’s also give our attention to being accurate. To being understanding. And above all let’s give people space to explain, to tell their story.

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