On February 3, a group of Journalists walked out of 10 Downing Street en-masse, after the Prime Minister’s director of communications tried to restrict certain media outlets from attending a briefing on Brexit plans regarding a free trade agreement with the EU.
Eric Barrell | Staff Writer
On February 3, a group of Journalists walked out of 10 Downing Street en-masse, after the Prime Minister’s director of communications tried to restrict certain media outlets from attending a briefing on Brexit plans regarding a free trade agreement with the EU.
Lee Cain, the communications director, attempted to exclude reporters from PoliticsHome, the Independent, the Mirror and HuffPost among others. In response, the journalists who were allowed to attend the briefing decided to boycott it in protest at this silencing of the press. Among those who walked out were big names such as Laura Kuenssberg from the BBC, Robert Peston from ITV, and political journalists from other big publications such as the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, Sky News, the Guardian and the Financial Times, in what has been described as a rare moment of solidarity for the British press. The walkout meant the briefing did not go ahead.
MPs in the House of Commons debated the events the next day. Cabinet Minister Chloe Smith defended the briefing as a regular method of a select number of journalists being informed about specialist subjects, alongside routine briefings inclusive of all the political press to be held twice daily. Her statement that “this government is committed to being open in its dealings with the press” and that “the events of yesterday were a good example of this” was met with peals of laughter from across the room. Other Conservative MPs such as Sir Peter Bottomley and Bim Afolami were critical of this response, believing more dialogue needed to take place between the Commons and all members of the media parliamentary lobby.
In recent years, and especially in the last election, we’ve seen social media take over from traditional outlets as a key form of political circulation. Both Mr Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have been accused of avoiding print and broadcast journalists in favour of social media outlets in which they have more control over their portrayal.
In the leadup to the December election, Mr Johnson refused to take part in Channel 4’s climate debate, avoided an interview with Andrew Neil which all other political party leaders took part in, and excluded a left-leaning newspaper reporter from travelling on his campaign bus.
Similarly, Donald Trump often refuses interviews with media outlets he dislikes and often tries to restrict their access to government affairs and campaign events. He has not held a press briefing over upcoming US governmental plans in months. On the same day that Mr Johnson’s communications director removed journalists from Downing Street, a Bloomberg reporter was removed from a Trump campaign event and CNN anchors were excluding from a White House press briefing ahead of the State of the Union Address; an event that traditionally has a press briefing inclusive of many media outlets.
Looking at the situation in the United States, it is easy to see why British Journalists have been raising alarm about many of Boris Johnson’s media policies. Many are feeling that this is one example among many of UK politics mirroring those of America, with Mr Johnson’s eagerness to promote good relations with the US in a post-Brexit economy influencing his decisions to adopt Trump-style media policies. After the walkout, Sky News political anchor Adam Boulton congratulated his media colleagues in a tweet for “standing firm against Number 10’s Baby Trumpism.”
Despite this, a senior Downing Street source has said that what happened at the briefing on Monday has been misrepresented. According to them, there had been a regular press briefing with all of the political journalists after the prime minister’s speech, and the briefing where the walkout occurred was a “smaller, selected briefing for specialist senior journalists”. According to this source, “a number of uninvited journalists barged into No 10 and demanded to be a part of it” but were told they could not attend.
Many are not buying this response, arguing that if these journalists were so uninvited, how were they able to get past Downing Street’s security scanners, show their parliamentary passes and knock on the door of No.10 to gain entry?
Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy. Concerns being raised from MPs across the house suggest that many are worried about the future of journalism over the course of this government. Journalists will have to continue to fight against censorship and work in solidarity, despite political bias and competition, in order to make it clear that freedom of speech and press coverage from a variety of outlets is vital to the democratic process.
[Image Credit: Jordhan Madec]
