Journos versus Politicians
In order to be successful, journalists have to write interesting stories that can be sold in a headline; in order to be successful, politicians have to tell interesting stories and sell them in a headline. On face value, neither profession has an incentive to have a high regard for "Truth". Both stake their jobs on being truthful, yet examples of politicians and journalists who have told outright lies and still kept their jobs are easy to find.
Tony Blair lied over the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but is not out of a job as a consequence. Alfredo Urdazi (the director of Television Española News) was condemned by the Spanish High Court for lying about the 2003 General Strike, but remains at the station's hub. In fact, both men's highly successful careers suggest that lying can be an asset - as long as you can get away with it.
There is no point getting our knickers in a twist about people who tell outright lies - some will get away with it, some won't. The issue at hand is not purely one of facts, but of which profession is offering a more honest view of the world.
There is no such thing as 'The Truth' - sole and absolute. In fact, one might say truth is anti-democratic, because it puts an end to discourse - the fundamental tenet of democracy. As Foucault would have it, knowledge is power - an intricate web of power relations that define what we regard as the truth. In this context, to ask who has the higher regard for truth is to ask who can navigate the whole web of power relations.
The job of journalists is to question the truth, so they look for one point in the web to question. What they fail to see is that Truth encompasses the whole web of interconnecting points, and that their questions are to a large extent futile. The job of politicians is to search for The Truth, by which is meant their particular 'Truth' - as defined by the power relations they establish or challenge. As such, politicians are used to navigating the web of power relations that defines 'Truth'.
Take the reporting of the referendum on the EU Constitution. Is it true that Mr Blair has performed a u-turn? Yes. Is it true that the result of the referendum will determine the UK's future within Europe? Yes.
Yet to pretend that these two headlines represent an accurate picture of the situation is not truthful. The truth involves the judicial and legislative consequences of the introduction of a written constitution, and perhaps more importantly the intentions of European politicians with regard to a shifting power balance - but that hardly makes an interesting headline.
Making a statement in an article and saying that it is "the Truth" is quite simply misleading. The truth is too complicated, tangled and relative to be encompassed in a headline. Politicians have learned to use simplistic punch lines to communicate their agenda too, but their message is fundamentally different.
Whilst the journalist says "look, this is true," the politician says "trust me, the truth lies behind this".
Honesty and trust are crucial to a politician's career - they prove the basis of any charismatic appeal, are what the electorate recognises, and often determine an MP's winning margin. The journalist will take the moral high ground, underline the particular fact she has exposed, and accuse the politician of being deceitful by not telling the whole story.
The irony is that there is no way to tell the whole story, because truth is far too complicated.
Politicians must have a higher regard for truth - both because they understand that truth is complicated, and because they know their jobs depend on honesty, trust, and on a public perception that they do in fact have a higher regard for truth than anyone else. Trust me, I'm telling you stories.
Sometimes a good story can get in the way of the truth, something which is proved all too often by both Britain's gutter press and the politicians who grace its pages. Politicians shape and direct the world in which we live; our finances, our health, our education, our welfare. Journalists shape and direct the way in which we think about this world; and there is no denying that together these two groups are the formative influence on society.
Neither is regarded with much credence or respect. Journalists are greeted with an air of suspicion, the image of the sleazy journo-hack popularised in films and all too often true. Politicians come off little better, and with shady characters like Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Archer proving the ready-made bad guys, the media often doesn't have to search hard to dish the dirt on their political friends.
Yet the increasing cynicism and inherent mistrust with which we regard our politicians is a sign that the media is doing its job. Any attempt to establish which of these groups can claim any kind of moral high ground is essentially impossible, because the two work together in tandem.
The media thrives on the political world, with parliamentary cock-ups and ministerial misdemeanours splashed across front pages in newsagents across the country. Politicians in their turn embrace and utilise the media to their own ends, the art of media manipulation a highly skilled and highly paid endeavour; Alistair Campbell, the ultimate 'King of Spin', epitomising the complex and multi-faceted relationship between the political and media spheres.
Campbell's ability to push and stretch the truth is a necessary and valuable asset, a fact willingly if not publicly acknowledged by politicians and journalists alike.
Yet to argue that journalists have no regard for the truth is fundamentally wrong. Regardless of the spin with which it can be adorned, to find and reveal the truth is at the very core of every journalist's mission.
Journalists have often been described as the 'fourth estate', and it is right to recognise the centrality of the media to modern-day democracy. It is because of journalists that politicians are forced to have a greater regard for the truth; the role of the media is ultimately to hold these public figures to account and challenge their actions.
The Mirror's recent 'revelation' of British atrocities in Iraq hardly screams of subtly, and the selling potential of the dubious and horrific photos would not have been bottom in Piers Morgan's mind. But the constant media attrition of the Government, permanently in the firing line of critical attack concerning their conduct in Iraq, has put pressure on politicians to adopt a more transparent approach.
The official findings of the Hutton report may have left Tony Blair and his Downing Street cronies virtually unscathed, but the whole drawn-out saga did raise important questions about the notion of 'spin'.
The fact that the eventual outcome of the long-anticipated enquiry came as something of a surprise is evidence for the scepticism with which many regard their polished Prime Minister. This is a scepticism engendered and endorsed by the media - the barrage of criticism against which Blair has stood encouraging an ever more cynical electorate to question and challenge their leader in what can only be seen as a sign of healthy democracy at work.
I'm not offering a rose-tinted view of a candid, kind-hearted and self-deprecating journalist who seeks only to provide a service to the public. This is of course not the case; any ambitious journalist, along with any other career-minded and driven individual, does have a personal agenda of sorts.
I would be cynical not to recognise the ulterior motives of newspaper editors, in their push for 'exclusives' and first-on-the-spot scoops; the need to under-cut and out-sell their competitors one driving force behind what must be seen not only as information outlets, but as highly fragile and precarious businesses, operating in a fierce and unpredictable market.
Clearly stories can be dressed-up to sell, yet in striving to find and reveal some degree of truth this healthy sense of cynicism is one that the media has also taught and enabled us to apply to politicians - a valuable contribution indeed.
The motion 'This House believes that Politicians have a higher regard for Truth than Journalists' will be debated tonight at 8.30pm in the Oxford Union Debating Chamber.
13th May 2004