Don’t silence us hacks, Boris... muzzle your ‘evil genius’
Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the american Declaration of Independence, had no doubt about the value of a free Press.
‘our liberty,’ he said, ‘depends upon the freedom of the Press. Were it left to me to decide to choose between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, I would not hesitate to choose the latter.’
Coming from the greatest of the founding fathers of what would become the world’s greatest democracy, that’s pretty powerful stuff.
for two tumultuous years, as a fledgling correspondent still in my 20s, I watched the most momentous battle for a free Press the United states has ever endured. Two young reporters, of whom nobody had ever heard outside their home town, took on the most powerful figure in the land and won.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward became the most famous reporters in history, the heroes of hollywood movies, the stuff of journalistic legend.
richard nixon became the first President of the United states to be forced to resign in disgrace.
Watergate became the mark against which every great scandal since has been judged. The suffix ‘…gate’ is now added routinely to the mundane and the momentous.
I had stood on the White house lawn 46 years ago watching nixon board the presidential helicopter for the last time, reflecting on how the words of his historic predecessor had been vindicated.
and I’m writing about it now because the freedom of the Press is being questioned again — not just in the United states but in this country, too.
surely not? There’s been no Watergate here. True, but what brought nixon down was not the original laughable attempt by a gang of misguided idiots to harm the Democratic Party, but the way he tried to cover it up. When all else failed, he and his henchmen resorted to threatening the media — specifically the Washington Post.
AND this is where there is a mildly worrying similarity. The Trump White house sees the ‘ mainstream media’ as the enemy — just as the nixon White house did. I attended many a press briefing in the West Wing, watching the ultimately fatal breakdown in trust between reporters and ron Ziegler, nixon’s powerful press secretary.
one of the more colourful threats came from the attorney General no less and concerned Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post. he warned that if she published a secret White house report she’s ‘gonna get her tit caught in a big fat wringer’. But Graham was made of stern stuff. The report was published.
It’s pretty unlikely that even Dominic Cummings, the man so often described as Boris Johnson’s evil genius, would sink to that vulgar level. But when people in power try to exert pressure on the media they have many weapons at their disposal.
The BBC has been feeling it for some months now. You may not be too distressed that Boris Johnson has never been interviewed on Today as Prime minister — but it matters. Power must be held to account. all power. and one way of doing it is to ask questions of those who exercise it on our behalf.
I’ve probably done more political interviews than any other hack in the country, and sometimes I was too aggressive. But that doesn’t mean we must now substitute a warm hug for a rabbit punch. nor, God forbid, does it mean that the interview simply becomes another vehicle for the politician to deliver a party political broadcast.
and nor should we meekly accept as a substitute for interviews the Prime minister appearing on facebook to answer carefully selected questions with carefully prepared answers. That’s the north Korean way of doing things.
We know why Cummings is following this strategy. he wants radical change and he can’t see a power bloc without wanting to smash it. especially if it’s the BBC. he also seems genuinely to believe that his man does not get a fair hearing from the mainstream media.
Let’s not pretend that journalists are always scrupulously fair.
one reason the most powerful correspondents in Washington treated nixon with such contempt was that they’d worshipped his old enemy, JFK. They had turned a blind eye to Kennedy’s scandalous behaviour in the White house. or ‘Camelot’ as it was known.
nixon did some great things. he ended american involvement in the Vietnam war and opened the door to Communist China for starters. But they never forgave him for not being Kennedy.
and now the White house and the Press are at war again.
Cummings doubtless watched closely as President Trump took down the liberal media, cosied up to the right-wing fox news and took control of his own social media. his hardline approach has met with huge approval.
Did anyone but the liberal media think impeachment was really on the cards? Wasn’t it just wishful thinking that Trump would eventually go the way of nixon? fox gives far greater coverage to Boris Johnson than to other politicians and delights in the behaviour that made the British media so squeamish during the election.
It’s still at it. This week, fox’s website ran five surprising quotes from Boris Johnson’s old newspaper columns. among them: ‘Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BmW m3.’
By contrast, the Cnn website preferred to concentrate on the story of reporters being shut out of lobby briefings in London.
Do voters care? Well, they weren’t exactly marching on number 10 this week. nor did they seem much fussed when the BBC and ITn refused to broadcast Johnson’s address to the nation as the UK left the eU.
Cummings had used a Downing street crew to film it rather than a news broadcaster, so the BBC rather bizarrely used a producer’s voice speaking Johnson’ s words instead.
DOUBTLESS, BBC management was making a point, but why haven’t they taken a similarly robust stand over Johnson boycotting Today and newsnight and ordering his senior ministers to do the same? They seem perfectly happy to afford Johnson
et al the full sofa treatment on Breakfast Television.
But perhaps the worm is beginning to turn. When the lobby came under attack, the BBC and ITV stood firm, just as rival newspapers did. Led by the mail’s own political editor Jason Groves, they walked out of 10 Downing street rather than be divided into lines of favourites and excluded.
To an outsider this might look like an over- reaction. But it made my old hack’s heart stir to see so many reporters, particularly those sympathetic towards the Johnson government, turn their back on his favours.
The British media, beyond the BBC, is not much liked. Journalists can be boisterous and roguish and even irresponsible. It’s not so long ago that Boris Johnson was one himself, arguing fiercely for the freedom of the Press. how sad if his legacy were to be censorship — however limited it may seem.
he would do well to remember the key words at the heart of Jefferson’s declaration. freedom of the Press, he said, cannot be limited without being lost.
It’s that word ‘ limited’ that matters.