Making Political Journalisam Relevant

By Peter A Bell

I'VE BEEN thinking about the media. I do that a lot anyway. But a number of things have conspired to bring the topic to the forefront of my thoughts. Donald Trump’s incoherent and inappropriate railing against disfavoured media organisations. The hysteria about ‘fake news’. And the increasingly heated debate about press regulation in the UK. These, among other things, have prompted me to reflect on the subject of the media.

The first question is whether ‘media’ is plural or singular. I know that, strictly speaking, the word is plural. But the media has (have?) come to seem like a single monolithic entity. Certainly, it (they?) is (are?) commonly talked about as if what was being referred to was one thing. Not a homogeneous thing at all. But something varied in the way that a slab of marble may have distinct streaks and mottlings.

Generalising in this manner is probably not conducive to a meaningful analysis. But it is illuminating in terms of the way it may reveal underlying attitudes to the media. Regardless of how the dictionary defines the word, it seems that in the real world outside grammar text books many people experience the media as a single entity. Or at least imagine it so.

For present purposes, however, it is best to recognise the diversity of the media. And to focus on some part of it (them?). Last one!

Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the particular strand of the media that is political journalism. Not least because that’s what most of the fuss is about. You rarely see a stooshie being kicked up because somebody has hacked an email server and released information about a new recipe for nut roast. It only hits the headlines if it’s about a politician with a penchant for getting his nuts roasted.