Rats In A Sack

October 8, 2008 in Journalism, UK Politics
Tags: campaigning, city, dale, iraq, Journalism, politics, robinson, spin, tatchell

I attended a debate on political campaigners and reporters this evening, and among others it featured Nick Robinson, Iain Dale and Peter Tatchell. I was lucky enough to be asked to cover the event for journalism.co.uk. This is the version I am going to turn in tomorrow, it’s a little longer than expected. I wonder how much will survive?

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson has expressed regrets about his reporting of the Iraq war, admitting he stuck too closely to the Government line and didn’t do enough to seek out dissenting views.

Taking part in a debate at City University last night Robinson also addressed the ways in which political parties employ spin, accusing them of trying to keep the public ill informed.

He said: “The biggest self criticism I have was I got too close to Government in the reporting of the Iraq war. I didn’t do enough to go away and say ‘well hold on, what about the other side.’ It is the one moment in my recent career where I have thought I didn’t push hard enough, I didn’t question enough and I should have been more careful.”

Robinson discussed the manner in which he felt the media was deceived at the time: “I don’t think the government did set out to lie about weapons of mass destruction. I do think they systematically and cumulatively misled people. What’s the distinction? It was clear to me that Alistair Alastair Campbell knew how what he was saying was being reported, knew that that was a long way from the truth and was content for it so to be. They knew it was wrong, they wanted it to be wrong – they haven’t actually lied.”

He highlighted instances “where politicians actively want to avoid a debate the public wants to have” and used an example of Labour’s reluctance to debate the implications of a single European currency. “It wanted to limit the debate to being the five tests, it wanted to avoid divisions, it simply did not want to enter a political debate.”

He added: “For the sake of political balance and truth might I say the Tories are now doing exactly the same thing. They don’t want a debate on whether they will tear up the Lisbon EU treaty, they don’t really want a debate about if they will put taxes up or down, or in what way. “These are active decisions by politicians to keep you ill informed, and it is our job as journalists to try to fight against that.

Robinson said of the anger directed at journalists for not being confrontational enough with politicians: “That isn’t the job of a journalist – to pick a constant fight with people in power. Part of our job is to report what it is people in power are trying to do, why they are trying to do it, how one should judge the success or otherwise of what they are trying to do. I don’t see it as a badge of pride to have endless arguments with politicians, although with Peter Mandelson they usually are.”

Later, when answering questions from the audience, Robinson qualified his thoughts on the Iraq war, saying he didn’t want to overstate them. “Over the period of weeks and months it was easy every day to say, ‘today the most important job is to report what the government internally are thinking of’ because there was little opposition in parliament. The cumulative affect was to never quite get round to saying ‘what is the way in which we will profit to report the alternative view.’ And that may well have been not me who should have done that.’

The debate was called ‘Political campaigners and reporters: partners in democracy or rats in a sack?’ and will be streamed at www.city.ac.uk/ratsinasack. It also featured Conservative blogger Iain Dale, human rights activist Peter Tatchell, former press secretary to Ken Livingstone, Joy Johnson, and former press secretary to Tony Blair, David Hill.

UPDATE: Jonathan pointed out that both I and journalism.co.uk hadn’t spotted the misspelling of Alastair Campbell.  Must sub my own copy more thoroughly in future!