10 Downing Street "Senior communications aide" attempts to ban Journalists

[Puzzled]

The media is getting pretty annoyed with boris in general and his unwillingness to be interviewed with any sort of real scrutiny. Instead he's doing things like answering questions from the public online which he did when he was London mayor. Now that sounds good but in reality he rarely had to answer any hard questions.

As much as I hate the tabloid press, democracy needs hard hitting questions from journalists to keep things in check.

 

[Moley]

The media is getting annoyed? Good. Let them. Most papers are just useless gossip rags anyway - an obsolete service in a modern age that should go the way of the dinosaurs.

 

[builder22]

the amount of times I've clicked on an Independent link only to be greeted with the 'no adblock' message...you'd think I'd have learned by now

 

[jpaul]

seems just an extension of Boris's curated exposure leading up to the election - apparently, some social media soliloquys, but, no bbc interviews.

Thought is was strange there was no reporting of boris speech on brexit night ... google now tells me that was a thing ...

Broadcasters have been accused of underplaying the significance of Brexit night after refusing to broadcast the Prime Minister's address to the ...

genuinely - thanks for censoring that.

 

[Quartz]

Independent is a major newspaper

You mean it's not a Putin propaganda vehicle?

 

[Quartz]

"After Cain told the banned journalists to leave, the rest of the journalists decided to walk out collectively rather than allow Downing Street to choose who scrutinises and reports on the government."

Good on them.

Agreed.

 

[wesimmo]

Even so, I’m a Boris supporter, but banning certain journalists because they are more hostile to your politics is bang out out of order.

Fair play, this sort of view should be congratulated.

 

[wesimmo]

The government can give access to private briefings to whoever they want. Access is a privilege not a right.

Your location is apt.

Only in a dictatorship is media access to public servants restricted.

 

[Tute]

Lol. Is this Russia?

Amazed people are even defending this.

I'm not defending it but you won't find me shedding a tear for the press either. Just about all of them have something dodgy about the way they operate, from hacking phones to smearing victims of tragedies, to just reporting lies.

I guess I just find the whole thing ironic when the press start crying foul at anyone.

 

[Steampunk]

I'm not defending it but you won't find me shedding a tear for the press either. Just about all of them have something dodgy about the way they operate, from hacking phones to smearing victims of tragedies, to just reporting lies.

I guess I just find the whole thing ironic when the press start crying foul at anyone.

There's a difference between the gossip rags and serious political journalists. And that's not all:

Johnson’s communications team has banned ministers from appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, boycotted ITV’s Good Morning Britain, and declined to appear on Channel 4 since before the election.

Ministers have also been told not to have lunch with political journalists, and it was briefed at the weekend that Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s senior adviser, had established a “network of spies” to find out whether other special advisers were fraternising with the media.

Last time I checked, Boris is supposed to work for us.

 

[Quartz]

Last time I checked, Boris is supposed to work for us.

The biases of the BBC and Channel 4 are well-known. The Tories have every right to give them the boot.

 

[Steampunk]

The biases of the BBC and Channel 4 are well-known. The Tories have every right to give them the boot.

But they are allowed to keep using their own pet journalists who won't question them? A free and inclusive media is all part of a healthy democracy and it's not a government's place to pick and choose in order to try and control the press and media.

Last time I checked, the government and their Brexiteer pals got a very easy ride from the BBC. They were rarely pulled up on their lies.

 

[Quartz]

But they are allowed to keep using their own pet journalists who won't question them? A free and inclusive media is all part of a healthy democracy and it's not a government's place to pick and choose in order to try and control the press and media.

It cuts both ways. The media must report freely and fairly, and that appears to not currently be the case, most especially the BBC.

Last time I checked, the government and their Brexiteer pals got a very easy ride from the BBC. They were rarely pulled up on their lies.

Really? Andrew Marr hardly let Boris get a word in edgeways.

 

[Steampunk]

Really? Andrew Marr hardly let Boris get a word in edgeways.

Wasn't Boris refusing to answer the questions and just doing his usual bluffering act?

 

[Mr Badger]

The biases of the BBC and Channel 4 are well-known. The Tories have every right to give them the boot.

Your post covers a lot of ground, managing to be funny, sad and more than a bit worrying. The BBC strives to be neutral and if anything has given the government and Brexiters an easy ride due to trying to be impartial. Just because it reports facts that don't support the case for Brexit does not make those facts less true. Also Channel 4, do you have evidence that they tell lies rather than the truth? If you have a problem with biased outlets, then what is your view of rabidly right wing pro Tory anti EU papers such as the Mail and Express? Are they OK because they have the right sort of bias?

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It cuts both ways. The media must report freely and fairly, and that appears to not currently be the case, most especially the BBC.

Can you back that statement up with any actual evidence?

Can't you see the folly in a situation where the government only wants their carefully selected lapdogs to report on their policies, and then people make statements like yours claiming this will eradicate bias and promote free and fair reporting?

 

[PapaLazaru]

The media is getting annoyed? Good. Let them. Most papers are just useless gossip rags anyway - an obsolete service in a modern age that should go the way of the dinosaurs.

What would you like to see replace them?

 

[rxodium]

What would you like to see replace them?

Blogs by untrained emotionally reactionary nobodies unanswerable to anyone and not having to at least have any kind of standards vomiting their opinions about what they think rather than the facts onto the internet. Oh oh, and some state run propaganda networks run under the guise of being the aforementioned and claiming that those who have to train to be journalists, answer to superiors and meet journalistic standards are fake news. Then like the Russians we can murder the actual journalists, to get them out of the way when they post anything less than flattering about those in power.

 

[FortuitousFluke]

The government can give access to private briefings to whoever they want. Access is a privilege not a right.

I don't dispute that, what I'm highlighting is what that says about the Government. Are you happy for the Government to refuse access to Journalists on the basis that they're more likely to report negatively on, or apply more scrutiny to, their policy decisions? Why would a Government choose to relegate journalists who apply scrutiny to policy making and is that a positive for the Country?

Let's face it, the Tories are actively trying to avoid scrutiny around their decision making, they tried the same thing during the final months of the Brexit debacle, aimed both at the press and the Commons.

 

[chroniclard]

The media is getting annoyed? Good. Let them. Most papers are just useless gossip rags anyway - an obsolete service in a modern age that should go the way of the dinosaurs.

These papers have indoctrinated millions of people with 40 years of anti eu propaganda/lies. Hardly obsolete.