Skip to content

George Monbiot on journalism

Not sure he\’s quite got the point of it all:

Our primary task is to hold power to account.

No it isn\’t.

It\’s to produce something to go in the blank spaces in between the adverts.

So what can be done? Because of the peculiar threat they present to democracy there\’s a case to be made for breaking up all majority interests in media companies, and for a board of governors, appointed perhaps by Commons committee, to act as a counterweight to the shareholders\’ business interests.

Seriously? You want to put the politicians in charge of what a newspaper or TV channel can report?

Are you mad?

11 thoughts on “George Monbiot on journalism”

  1. So Much For Subtlety

    The BBC had a nice panel discussion the other day in which the pretty Italian woman said what Britain needed was a system of licences issued by the government for journalists. Because journalism is so important to democracy.

    The idiocy of this, given her own government, did not seem to strike her.

    Alas another little fantasy dies – that European women are sexy and smart. No doubt that sexist or something.

  2. Establishment figure calls for State control of the press. Fancy.

    I guess George is getting twitchy that the unquestioning support for AGW propaganda is drying up, so he wants state kommissars to “oversee” tbe media “to ensure fairness”.

  3. Soooo, let me get this right, the way to hold power to account is to make those whose ‘primary function’ is to do so accountable to power ?

    That isn’t even internally consistent.

  4. The whole article is spectacularly confused. Not even a nod to the notion that newspaper content is primarily decided by those who buy the newspapers. There’s some room for owners, editors and journos to shape/twist public opinion, but if that public just wants to pay 20p and get some sport, celebrity gossip, blaming Johnny foreigner and a pair of tits that’s what will be printed.

    And left-wing papers have their target audiences just as righties do…

    Niels.

  5. It helps to understand that in the Proggie mind, the word “democracy” is simply a synonym for “progressive reformism”. It is a process in which the Elect of high profile proggies articulate the will of the people on behalf of the people; they know this will by spiritual insight and conviction; effectively the Will is a form of divine revelation. It has nothing to do with the voting thing or the actual people having a voice or political influence, both of which are Bad Things, because the people are actually stupid, ignorant thugs subject to a false consciousness, the veil of which can only be lifted by the Elect, such as George Monbiot.

  6. You know, I always thought a journalist’s job was to report the news.

    Guess I’m just not progressive enough.

  7. Monbiot probably thinks the BBC governors could just add this task to their remit.

    Then there’d be no more chance of biassed news, would there?

    Er, um…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *