Journalists. Please, please, cut one phrase out of your vocabulary. It is “He will say”.
Why? Well, try “Unseasonably Mild” Wintour’s latest.
The first problem here is that something given out by a political party is being repeated uncritically. We get a complete paragraph-length Cameron soundbite, plus literally all the talking points, factoid by factoid and implausibly precise number by implausibly precise number. Because he hasn’t said it yet, there is no real response from the opposition or anyone else. There are remarks from Ed Balls, but they are either from the past and therefore stale, or else they are yet more he-will-say material, which means they aren’t responses to what the other he will say. The journalist has stepped into the game and granted the initiative to Gang A.
The second problem is that he-will-say stories permit journalists to pretend they have news when they only have briefings. He-will-say is news in the way that “a train will leave Stevenage for Finsbury Park at 0628 tomorrow” is news, or in other words, it’s not news. Wintour, or whoever, wants you to think he has discovered hints about what he-will-say through brilliant investigation or intimate contacts. So do they all, but they all have the story, because they were all briefed. They could just wait for the release tomorrow, but that would give away the unbearable fact that they aren’t all that. This leads us to the third problem.
The third problem is that he-will-say stories permit PR people to make sure their nonsense gets into the paper. They tell the national political hacks what he-will-say, rather than waiting ’til he says it, because then the hacks can pretend they have a story, which makes sure it gets into the paper. The fact that it’s in the paper leads us to the fourth problem.
The fourth problem is that the TV and radio people show up for the actual speech, although there is now no news in it, because it was briefed out to the newspapers as a he-will-say. This is a further violation of the general anti-bullshit principle.
Now we might say that this is a structural consequence of the media today, or some such. But look how often Wintour does it. Michael White did it about twice as often. On the other hand, business, sports, or trade journalists barely do it at all. I can’t think of the last time I saw a business desk article with “He will say” in the lede, although it’s not like business lobbyists don’t speechify. So it’s evidently a feature of the special/sick relationship between big news political desks and politicians.
Before you ask, I haven’t noticed anywhere near as many “She will say” stories, but even if they were to appear more often they would be just as awful for the reasons I have described. It might as well be “Karellen will say” without the passionate opposition to animal cruelty.
It’s mutated – reporting on the Blair speech this morning, BBC Breakfast not only told us what he will say, but also what the Tories will say in response to it.
If they had only he-will-said the Blair speech, there would have been no need for him to even give it! the entire event could have been purely virtual! such a lack of ambition
It causes my other half to throw things at the radio, which is otherwise quite rare.
Isn’t it also an exercise in kite-flying, so that both policy and response can be tested in advance? Which means that when something bad sneaks through, it is actually never said. For the more devious dog-whistler, the never-said is then another opportunity, because you get the opportunity to both say something and not say it.
The thing that impresses me is how the news during the Radio 3 breakfast show manages to compress all that is idiotic and hateful about ‘he said, she said, he is going to say, she is going to say, shape of Earth opinions differ’ news into about 90 seconds. Surely it is not beyond the wit of BBC to have a special news free stream on t’Internet.
This is what Ed will say tomorrow in Warwick.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/miliband-pledges-abolish-non-dom-tax-status
Yes, politicians frequently release the texts of speeches to the media before the speech is actually made. But I can’t see that this is an especially egregious sin. It’s done simply in order to accommodate the varying deadlines of a diverse media.
So, for example, books are made available to reviewers well in advance of publication, and films are screened for critics way before they’re released into cinemas.
The point is to try to avoid favouring some sections of the media over others, by allowing all media outlets equal opportunity to report and comment. And I can’t see anything wrong in that.
It’s started happening in cricket over the last year or so, which is a sign of how weird things have gotten around the ECB in the Downton era.