Peter Ungpharkorn @CoppentianPU
1/10. Had a long chat with an old friend today. We both worked in information, briefing journalists etc. He did it most of his working life. Some of my working life was also on the other side, ie, a journalist receiving briefing.
We got to talking about media coverage of Brexit.
2. Let's say we were both dissatisfied with it.
And we were talking about the serious stuff. Not those inflammatory tabloid headlines.
This was part of a longer chat about media manipulation and why the media are sometimes very tame. We had both seen it in our different ways.
3. We both felt too many journalists either didn't detect manipulation by their sources, or were reluctant to resist.
Only some are critically-minded enough to sift out the spin.
Too few bother to ask the PM "what have you proposed?" when he claims the UK is negotiating hard.
4. In my own experience 1 or 2 stand out.
Like the then reporter from Neue Zürcher Zeitung who always stood back thoughtfully, understanding the technical detail we briefed about, but refusing to be drawn into it because the bigger picture was more important.
Keeping a distance
5. That was about technical trade issues.
Brexit is different. It's a horrendously difficult subject to report on. Keeping a distance is an even bigger problem.
Journalists, like anyone, can be drawn into a bubble. We get too close to our sources. We get conditioned by them.
6. So, journalists who spend their whole time in Westminster or with political parties, focus on party-political Brexit, or whether a leader will survive, or what the voting numbers are among MPs. Rarely the substance.
But Brexit is much, much bigger than that, even politically
7. My friend and I agreed that many of the better reporters on Brexit are not in London, but in Brussels.
They work for the BBC, RTE and the print media.
My take on it is that they are forced to see the other side of the argument, to take a more rounded view
8. There's another angle: off-the-record and background briefings.
Access to that kind of information is essential for good journalism. But it's also a privilege. One that can be withdraw
9. When a source, particularly close to the very top, gives confidential, usable information, it takes a brave journalist to report negatively on the source. The risk is losing access.
So, critical reporting must be done carefully.
And that's why journalists sometimes seem tame
10/ends.
We know journalists can break out of the bubble, take a more rounded, distanced view, particularly about what they have been told. There are not many but we do see them.
There are also some doing a valiant job checking facts.
We need more of all of them.
A thread summing up pretty much everything I've posted over the course of the day, inc pre 'there is no press' gate.
My fav Brexit journalists atm is definitely Peter Foster (telegraph) for many of these reasons - precisely because a deal all rests on the backstop and the GFA. It really shocks me how few journalists are paying attention to this given its significance.
It is quite something that he works for the Telegraph all things considered.
Faisal Islam is good, but he's not quite found his feet since leaving sky for the beeb.