Off the Record
August 15th 2007 01:06
he recent claims by political journalists about Peter Costello’s alleged statements on the leadership reflects very badly on the Fourth Estate. The “Off the Record Club” is a cherished and necessary part of the political process. Not everything can be discussed in public. That old saying about the processes of the making of laws and of sausages both needing to be kept from the public is as true as ever.
In essence the off-the-record rules are an extension of those of the mess – no business over meals and the inviolability of the sacred seal of the claret bottle. The fearless truth-seeking journalist risking life and limb for the public’s right to know is not only a fiction - it is a dangerous fiction, at least in the context of domestic politics. The word “hubris” springs to mind unbidden. Journalists have exceeded their brief when they stop reporting or providing informed opinion and begin to manufacture news.
Journalists and politicians really do need to know get to know one another for the good of the political process. It is the oil that keeps the Byzantine machinery of government running as smoothly as it might. Journalists are as much a part of the system as the people about whom they write – or about whom they choose to keep silent.
The trade-off for journalistic confidentiality is the knowledge of where bodies, or indeed mines, are buried. And, of course, being the first to write about confidences whose use by date has expired. There is also the lure - perhaps even temptation - of the shaman’s cloak, of being the sole possessor of secret and dangerous knowledge, of being part of the inner circle of those who really understand how the world works.
In this connection, it is fascinating how effortlessly biblical metaphors leap from the pens of our scribes when they fall to describing changes in political leadership. Successors, for example, are always being anointed - not by an Archbishop with a vial of Chrism or the prophet Nathan with a horn of oil but by those media artifacts, opinion polls.
So too the way oracles are delivered by the brotherhood, or increasingly of the sisterhood, of the media prophets. They are as trenchant as Samuel pronouncing the end of Saul’s kingship. You half expect to read, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel” at the end of some commentaries.
The sooner the media understands that their job in a political context is to interpret the business of government for the people the better. They are, or ought to be, Temple servants helping the laity, as it were, to form a connection with the mighty and impenetrable business of government - not beardy, wide-eyed fanatics with little personal hygiene or respect for our hard won institutional achievements. Judicious silence is a key element of making that work.
In essence the off-the-record rules are an extension of those of the mess – no business over meals and the inviolability of the sacred seal of the claret bottle. The fearless truth-seeking journalist risking life and limb for the public’s right to know is not only a fiction - it is a dangerous fiction, at least in the context of domestic politics. The word “hubris” springs to mind unbidden. Journalists have exceeded their brief when they stop reporting or providing informed opinion and begin to manufacture news.
Journalists and politicians really do need to know get to know one another for the good of the political process. It is the oil that keeps the Byzantine machinery of government running as smoothly as it might. Journalists are as much a part of the system as the people about whom they write – or about whom they choose to keep silent.
The trade-off for journalistic confidentiality is the knowledge of where bodies, or indeed mines, are buried. And, of course, being the first to write about confidences whose use by date has expired. There is also the lure - perhaps even temptation - of the shaman’s cloak, of being the sole possessor of secret and dangerous knowledge, of being part of the inner circle of those who really understand how the world works.
In this connection, it is fascinating how effortlessly biblical metaphors leap from the pens of our scribes when they fall to describing changes in political leadership. Successors, for example, are always being anointed - not by an Archbishop with a vial of Chrism or the prophet Nathan with a horn of oil but by those media artifacts, opinion polls.
So too the way oracles are delivered by the brotherhood, or increasingly of the sisterhood, of the media prophets. They are as trenchant as Samuel pronouncing the end of Saul’s kingship. You half expect to read, “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel” at the end of some commentaries.
The sooner the media understands that their job in a political context is to interpret the business of government for the people the better. They are, or ought to be, Temple servants helping the laity, as it were, to form a connection with the mighty and impenetrable business of government - not beardy, wide-eyed fanatics with little personal hygiene or respect for our hard won institutional achievements. Judicious silence is a key element of making that work.
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