The Hutton Report

[The Gaffer]

Originally posted by LutraMage
By the way, when I was young you didn't talk about a Free Press, you talked about a Free and Fair Press - signifying that balanced against the powerful freedom of the media to print what they wanted was the responsibility to do so in a fair and unbiased manner. Nowadays, whilst I often hear so-called journalists championing the Freedom of the Press, I never hear them mentioning a Free and Fair Press - what a surprise!

Interesting point; if it's true, I would argue that the politicians only have themselves to blame.

Governments now employ legions of (often publicly-funded) communications staff whose sole purpose is to manipulate the public perception of what the politicians are up to. T'was ever thus, you might say. But wouldn't you accept that in recent years, this dark art has reached ever greater heights of sophistication? Or would you regard Alastair Campbell as a civil servant whose prime motive was to tell the truth to the people of Britain, rather than to make the Prime Minister and the Government seem pure as the driven snow?

In this light, being fair means being manipulated; to be free, the media have to be hostile.