Blair Attacks British Media

By Bonnie Malkin and agencies
The Telegraph

Tony Blair has launched a scathing attack on the UK media describing it as “a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits”.

	Tony Blair’s leadership has been criticised for its use of spin

He said fierce competition for stories meant that the modern media now hunted “in a pack”.

“In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits,” he said.

“But no-one dares miss out.”

The Prime Minister made the comments during a speech about public life to the Reuters news agency.

He acknowledged that New Labour had spent too much time in its early years trying to influence media coverage but said the Government’s approach had been necessary due to the “ferocious hostility” towards Labour.

However, he accepted that the “inordinate attention” paid to courting and persuading the media had fuelled cynicism.

Mr Blair said the relationship between politicians and the press had always been fraught, but said that it had intensified in recent years.

While insisting that he was not complaining about the coverage he gets as Premier, Mr Blair claimed there was less balance in journalism now than 10 years ago.

But he admitted his own “complicity” in the present state of affairs.

“We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media,” Mr Blair said.

“In our own defence, after 18 years of opposition and the, at times, ferocious hostility of parts of the media, it was hard to see any alternative.”

“But such an attitude ran the risk of fuelling the trends in communications that I am about to question.”

The Prime Minister said there was no point blaming the media, arguing that the decline was largely due to the new 24-hour news agenda and the fragmentation of the market.

But he said that “impact” was now often more important than balance in a way that was harming the public’s view of public life.

Mr Blair said that the evolution of non-traditional media outlets was making matters worse, rather than better, as he had originally thought.

“It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon.

“New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media.

“In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five.”

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