Blair's parting message for media

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News website

In a parting blast at the media he once assiduously courted, Tony Blair has warned that the relationship between the modern media and people in public life will have to change.

Mr Blair said media competition is leading to lack of balance

In a speech he predicted would be rubbished in some quarters, he claimed the relationship between public life and the media was now "damaged in a manner that requires repair".

It was, he suggested, a brave thing to admit in public, but it needed to be said.

In fact, it has been said many times in recent memory, most notably by his former spin doctor Alastair Campbell and, perhaps most vociferously, in the wake of the Hutton inquiry.

Mr Blair met that head on, repeating his view that the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly was disparaged because it was not the result the critics wanted.

Others, however, might say the problem was that the public had been able to read the entire proceedings online or watch large chunks on the 24 hour rolling news outlets which Mr Blair believes causes some of the current "issues", and make up their own minds.

Still, leaving that aside as he suggested, the prime minister repeated the argument that the rapid changes in technology through, primarily, rolling news and the internet had not led to the public being properly and accurately informed.

No balance

He claimed both politicians and the media needed to share the blame for this.

Alastair Campbell controlled media access to his boss

Intense competition in the media and the pressure of 24 hour news meant the media was so driven by impact that accuracy took second place.

"It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else," he said.

Meanwhile, he said, news and comment were being deliberately conflated, Watergate-style conspiracies dominate to the point that the media will not accept politicians make mistakes rather than act venally and, as a result of all this, there is no balance in reporting.

The politicians were also to blame because "we are worried about saying this, playing along with the notion it is all our fault".

He was happy to once again admit New Labour probably went too far in trying to handle, and manipulate the media when in opposition - but that, he suggested, was because they had given Labour such an appalling time in the past.

His critics in the media believe he has attempted more than any previous premier to manipulate the press.

And some of them have already suggested that much of the cynicism about politicians had been the result of the way in which he took Britain into the war on Iraq.

Change coming

Mr Blair said that since coming to power he had tried to be open by putting daily briefings on the record, giving monthly press conferences, introducing freedom of information laws and appearing before a Commons committee twice a year.

It had not worked, he said, because they have not changed how politics is reported.

Mr Blair warned changes were coming

The prime minister's official spokesman later explained Mr Blair had only now decided to make this speech because he had reached a point in his premiership where he could give an honest assessment.

"He has nothing to gain from this," he added.

But it has already been suggested that the prime minister did indeed have something to gain, by attempting to suggest he had not received balanced coverage at the hands of the media over the past decade.

So, at the end of his speech - which he insisted was not a whinge or "my response to the latest whacking from bits of the media" - politicians and the media were left to decide what they can do to put things right.

We must try harder to focus on policies not just personalities BBC political editor Nick Robinson Read Nick's blog entry

He was clear that modern technology meant there was no sense in having separate regulators for newspapers and for broadcasters.

On a broader level "there is inevitably change on its way".

What that change will be was not spelled out, but the PM appeared to be saying the media needed to start changing its habits - and all politicians needed to be braver and stop pretending it is all their fault.