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The News Monopoly
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The Press Association describes itself as ‘the UK leader in news and sports information’. Chris Aspinall analyses the implications of the increasing dependency of the media on its news services. Listen to any day’s review of the papers on the Today programme, and it would be easy to get the impression that each has its own huge newsgathering operation.
In London, each of the nationals may have staff reporters to cover Whitehall, Westminster, the high courts and repel the enthusiasm of the capital’s PRs. Elsewhere, the reality is different. While some, truly local, papers may be able to unearth stories of their own, they have become forced to rely on the monopoly of PA for court, business and national coverage.
The BBC may claim to have the world’s largest "newsgathering" operation, but relatively few of the Corporation’s hundreds of journalist are "primary" reporters, out and about, their ears close to the proverbial ground, making and developing contacts, gleaning tip-offs and following up hunches. Evening and regional morning papers, commercial radio and television stations operate under similar constraints. Reporters are under pressure to fill space or airtime, on shifts that are understaffed, leaving them unable to escape from their desks, online computers or umbilical telephones.
That pressure gets worse overnight, at weekends and during the silly seasons of August and Christmas holidays. So, almost by default, PA has become the UK’s monopoly reporter. Some smaller agencies exist, and are profitable, but it is PA which has the contracts with most publishers and broadcasters.
Few freelances now see livelihoods in court reporting. Some can survive, usually by covering several hearings almost simultaneously at crown courts, but there are far fewer than there were. Buying material from them can add to the burden of duty editors, who must then justify the spending, a task that may not be worth the hassle. So, unless there is something "on diary" and a radio or television station knows about an event in advance, coverage will depend - almost by default - on PA. PR handouts may be devoured, often verbatim and without checking, but it is PA that provides much, if not most, of any news organisation’s basic material.
PA monitors their users too, cannibalistically recycling what little original reporting may have been in one paper, or broadcast on the Today programme or Breakfast with Frost, so others can regurgitate that copy. Papers may top-and-tail PA copy with their own reporters’ words, and bylines; radio stations may get anyone who happens to be around the newsroom at the time to "voice" the same material, but the material has still come from the one source.
Editors appear to invest PA with a credibility that is generous, largely uncritical and may not always be convenient. Copy may be ordered from PA, but with, say, only one reporter covering a large area, it may be late afternoon before a report from an early morning hearing is written and filed. It is easy to forget that a story may not be worth using, even if PA has covered it and filed copy. Indeed, the managing editors now overseeing the BBC News Online operation from Birmingham prescribe PA as authoritative. Yet how reliable is the copy?
PA has managed reasonably well to maintain the historic quality of the material it circulates. As a commercial organisation that is itself under financial pressure, its managers face the hard decisions of balancing maximum productivity, using human and other resources at optimum capacity, with accuracy and authority.
Commerce loves monopolies, simply because competition is expensive. Market economies only function when regulation is imposed to enforce competition (and increase costs for the end users). Many cities and counties now have local paper monopolies, even though the perspective across the UK as a whole is more diverse. The legislators who enforce regulation when potential monopolies threaten political interests may not have appreciated this - or how PA has become the single news provider for most.
PA is a trusted news source. But trust is always delicate. With PA under as much pressure as any other news organisation to deliver profits, commercial practice presents a major threat to that trust. There may be a greater quantity of news than ever hitting the airwaves or filling the column centimetres, but the quality in terms of the breadth and diversity, of the stories being covered has declined - and more has very much become less.
Last modified: Monday, March 14, 2005
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World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
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Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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