Peter Oborne, like Simon Jenkins, can be a deeply annoying right wing commentator. And also an exceptionally good writer who sometimes delivers an exceptionally good argument. And now he has resigned from the Telegraph with profound reasons stated in an article on Open Democracy. This is part of what he said:
This brings me to a second and even more important point that bears not just on the fate of one newspaper but on public life as a whole. A free press is essential to a healthy democracy. There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men. Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.
It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can't be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone-hacking, even if (like the Telegraph) they had not themselves been involved. One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson, who has since been jailed and now faces further charges of perjury, as director of communications in 10 Downing Street.
And he added:
From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph. Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank's decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper's investigation into the Jersey accounts.
With his started consequence:
An editorial operation that is clearly influenced by advertising is classic appeasement. Once a very powerful body know they can exert influence they know they can come back and threaten you. It totally changes the relationship you have with them. You know that even if you are robust you won't be supported and will be undermined.
And conclusion:
There are great issues here. They go to the heart of our democracy, and can no longer be ignored.
I agree. The fight against neo-feudalism has to stretch from left to right.
I admire Peter Oborne, even if I don't always agree with him.
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Well, when even the cheer leaders of the theme park known as ‘Neo-Lib Land’ stand up and say ‘Enough!’ you can certainly tell the game is up. I hope this particular game ends soon.
AS I tried to say elsewhere on your blog, libertarianism can do some dramatic u-turns. Blimey – in the 4th paragraph, Obourne could be talking about the whole of the financial sector, never mind HSBC!
whatever his views, full marks for integrity. We need to be reminded not all the good guys are on our side-strangely!
Indeed
Two insightful pieces in the Independent today highlight the issues around our media.
The first, by Michael Church, is an examination of BBC News and its almost total capitulation to a skewed and parochial management system that has, to all intents and purposes, emasculated the service and robbed it of its standing as an independent reporter of objective truth. Interestingly, the author compares BBC newsgathering, rather unfavourably with Al Jazeera, (with notable qualifications for the blind spots resulting from the ownership of the channel by the Qatari Royal family, highlighting the readiness of Al Jazeera to boldly go where the BBC will not.
The second piece by Frankie Boyle (written in response to the Charlie Hebdo massacre), is an excoriating examination of our cultural attitudes to freedom of speech, and the limitations placed on it by our propensity for offence. More importantly is Boyle’s analysis of the way in which the media decontextualise information in order to present issues as simple black and white moral choices. This more than anything has been responsible for the social conditioning of attitudes that has in turn spawned ‘Generation Outrage’. It is an artÃfice that constrains both our capacity for nuance and our ability to challenge social issues. Imagine, for instance, the opprobrium that would have engulfed any commentator, post Charlie Hebdo, who had the temerity to seek reasons beyond radical Islam, reasons of deprivation, social injustice and alienation, for the actions of the perpetrators.
None of what the authors describe is new of course. It has been predicted by Huxley, Wells and perhaps most accurately in Noam Chomsky’s ‘Propaganda Model’. But all three commentators lift the lid on the degree to which the Neo-liberal concensus has been allowed to capture our media, and the way in which it is being utilised to colour our social attitudes.
As far as I’m aware, Peter Oborne is the most high-profile, if not the first, to break cover. He is also the first to expose the gulf between Conservatism and Neo-liberalism. Let’s hope he is the first of many.
That distance between Conservatives and neoliberals is key to Oborne, I think
“de-contextualised information in order to present issues presented as simple black and white moral choices” Spot on!
I have thought for a long time that papers like the Mail want to encourage outrage. So when the Archbishop of Canterbury went to Dresden for the anniversary of the bombing, the Mail had a headline about ‘insult to RAF heroes’. Then we had the MP for Aldershot on radio 4 saying he had gone to far.
“Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.”
There is a contradiction built into this statement. If the statement itself were true then there would only need to be one newspaper: ‘The Daily Truth.’ (Pravda!) Because ‘truth’ does not have a unitary value independent of our perspectives and leanings about how we interpreter economic and social relationships-we can’t have simple ‘truth’. Of course what he really means is that journalists should not compromise themselves to corporate power -using the word ‘truth’ here is probably not helpful.
Still his standing up for himself and speaking ‘truth to power’ as Richard and Quakers put it, is really valuable.
Simon
I think we can accept that honestly held opinion is the closest to the truth we can get
The suggestion is that the Telegraph offered no such thing
That would not surprise me
Richard