tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post1310123649556811219..comments2023-12-10T16:30:24.965+00:00Comments on Max Atkinson's Blog: Politicians and broadcasters in the UK: collaboration or capitulation?Max Atkinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06163447049027217653noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post-15107751347694110612011-10-06T13:18:02.813+01:002011-10-06T13:18:02.813+01:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post-2992022593913815512011-09-21T11:10:56.168+01:002011-09-21T11:10:56.168+01:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Rogernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post-71771979845775562942011-09-20T22:38:20.464+01:002011-09-20T22:38:20.464+01:00You make some good points, but have ignored the fa...You make some good points, but have ignored the fact of the televised debates, which surely play a huge part in any analysis?<br />Factor that in, and most of the posts are negated too.<br />Comment?cbwoolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16670409171879147440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post-41247011477853036102011-09-20T17:06:11.228+01:002011-09-20T17:06:11.228+01:00Interesting piece. And you mention my all time big...Interesting piece. And you mention my all time biggest media pet peeve - the moment when the news commentator stands in front of someone giving a speech and literally explains what they're saying instead of letting us actually hear the words currently being spoken. Diabolical and pointless. Let politicians explain themselves - how else can we decide whether to vote for them? So absurd...Obama Londonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02652619223311941390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post-36240953555792483792011-09-20T15:02:13.702+01:002011-09-20T15:02:13.702+01:00Max
There is, of course, a parallel in newspaper ...Max<br /><br />There is, of course, a parallel in newspaper reporting of politics. I can just about remember when the broadsheets would carry reports of the debates at party conferences and include significant chunks of the main speeches. Parliamentary proceedings got similar treatment. All these have disappeared (for a variety of good and bad reasons, no doubt) and replaced with other styles and types of reporting. The explosion of the net means that a lot of the material can be accessed in other ways. And the coverage of the fringe is now much more extensive than it was. But a bit of me weeps for the old days. And there's no doubt that the parties have had to re-structure and re-focus their events in response. <br /><br />Alan LeamanAlan Leamannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post-82943523254649553842011-09-20T14:02:29.328+01:002011-09-20T14:02:29.328+01:00Max,
What does interest me is how radically the ...Max, <br /><br />What does interest me is how radically the US and UK media have diverged.<br /><br />Old style political oratory and its reporting seems far less dead in the US than in the UK. <br /><br />At least in presidential campaigns speeches get broadcast either in full or in substantial chunks. <br /><br />And not just the President but lower level politicians as well are regularly allowed direct un-mediated access to the public. <br /><br />For me this reflects the more ideological nature of US politics and of politicians whose prime audience is a highly committed partisan base whose support they cannot take for granted but must constantly woo. <br /><br />For me the death of oratory is the product of the de-ideologised managerialist politics that triumphed here in the 1990s. <br /><br />For a managerialist politician the objective is not to be an inspirational firebrand beloved by activists but to simply be a safe pair of hands able to attract dithering centrist floating voters. <br /><br />Good political speeches have to express fundamental beliefs and make sweeping promises that it can be very inconvenient to be held to. <br /><br />Interviews on the other hand present the politician as competent, reassuring and focused not on grand issues but on solving whatever specific problems of the day the interviewer raises - showcasing the perfect manager rather than the perfect politician. <br /><br />(BTW I'd highly recommend Chris Dillow's book he End of Politics on the Blairist form of managerialism) <br /><br />And Gordon Brown of course while an able party politician (although no great orator) was a truly terrible manager - but so entrenched and inflexible had the managerialist mode of discourse created by media and politicians in the Major-Blair era become that he was unable to break out of it even when his own future and that the country utterly depended upon doing so - with that clip of Nick Robinson mediating away above him and describing how passionately he orating was being down below being an almost perfect symbol of how far we have now gone.Rogernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553440626649035970.post-85666184966096860302011-09-20T11:41:11.589+01:002011-09-20T11:41:11.589+01:00I think that politicians think that many people to...I think that politicians think that many people today seem to have short attention spans, and would not be interested in a long speech. They think that answering questions shows that they are accountable; in fact, as you say, it shows them to be evasive at best, dishonest at the worst. Maybe the problem with the media is that the journos see their opinion on a subject as more important than the subject itself, and therefore deny the public the chance to form their own opinion.<br />I think that interviews, if conducted properly, are an essential tool of democracy. A politician can win votes with a powerful speech, containing the devices detailed in your excellent book. It is in interviews, however, that important questions can (and should) be answered. That the politicians fail to answer them is an indictment of their integrity.Jamesnoreply@blogger.com