SpinWatch - The Deadly Embrace: Political Public Relations and Journalism in Election Campaigns - by Nicolas Jones

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The Deadly Embrace: Political Public Relations and Journalism in Election Campaigns - by Nicolas Jones

More often than not today's election campaigns are fought out on a battleground which is being determined and controlled almost entirely by the news media. Newspapers, radio, television -- and now websites on the Internet -- provide the stage on which the politicians have to perform and try to win the attention of an increasingly sceptical, and sometimes hostile, electorate. Political public relations advisers and journalists tend to be locked together in an ever-closer embrace, a relationship which can lead to unhealthy collusion and a lowering of editorial standards.

Political parties and the news media need each other more than ever. Politicians have few other effective ways to communicate with the public except through the news media and, for their part, journalists know they cannot ignore the drama and significance of an election campaign. After all the proposition -- “Who Governs the Country?” -- is a question which is of vital importance to most readers, viewers and listeners. The prospect that political power might change hands -- and therefore put the future direction of the country at stake -- is enough to excite any journalist but it also provides a temptation for media proprietors to interfere. The British experience is that while newspapers still retain considerable influence in shaping the daily political agenda, it is still what voters see and hear -- on television and radio -- which is likely to have the greatest influence in determining which political leader and which party they are most likely to support. The impact of websites -- and especially web logs where voters can participate and express themselves -- is being felt more and more. For example, in the last British general election in May 2005, the Internet was the first source of political information for a third of all young people. That proportion is bound to increase and the emergence of yet another battleground for the political parties reinforces the pressure on political propagandists to make sure they know how best to compete for attention. There is a paramount need, therefore, for political public relations to keep abreast of the ways in which the media is expanding and adapting. Recent trends in Britain are not encouraging: media proprietors are changing their political allegiances with greater frequency than before and invariably for crude advantage; they trade the political support of their newspapers in return for a commercial benefit.