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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (25099)	1/19/2004 4:27:56 PM
From: maceng2	Respond to of 793689

and a cavalier approach to the truth -ggg- [FWIW, Tony B has been heavily criticized for being US styled "presidential" in the way he treats his job over the years. ] Blair's Office Urged on Media Openness BETH GARDINER Associated Press LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair's press office should hold televised, White House-style briefings to bring greater openness and help counter public cynicism about politics and the media, an independent review of the government's communications operations said Monday. The government-commissioned review said a poisonous relationship between politicians and the media had left most Britons deeply disenchanted with both groups and created dangerous levels of apathy about public affairs. It prescribed "a long-term program of radical change" focused on greater openness and more direct engagement between government and citizens as the way to restore trust. Among the problem areas noted in the panel's report was the current system of twice-daily briefings for reporters, attributed only to "the prime minister's official spokesman." "Both government and the media have seen their credibility damaged by the impression that they are involved in a closed, secretive and opaque insider process," said the panel's report. It said Blair's spokespeople should brief on the record and urged government ministers to participate in the daily conferences. The review was carried out by senior journalists, media specialists and government advisers, and chaired by Bob Phillis, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, which owns The Guardian and The Observer newspapers. The government commissioned their report in response to the furor over an e-mail in which a transportation department aide told colleagues minutes after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks began that it was a good day to "bury" bad news. Since then criticism of the government's press strategy has intensified. Blair's office got into a bitter dispute with the British Broadcasting Corp. last year over a BBC reporter's story that the government "sexed up" intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify a war. The dispute escalated when a weapons expert at the center of the story, David Kelly, committed suicide. Kelly's apparent suicide was the subject of a high-profile inquiry by senior appeals judge Lord Hutton, who plans to report his findings next week. Blair already has acted on some of the Phillis commission's interim recommendations, launching an overhaul of the government's communications structure in September in an effort to undercut frequent charges that his office spins news. He said then he would put a nonpartisan civil servant instead of a political aide in charge of communications. That diluted the power of the post vacated by Alastair Campbell, Blair's powerful communications chief on whom much of the criticism about spin had centered. Campbell resigned in August. The prime minister also began holding monthly televised news conferences. Every week in parliament he is grilled by lawmakers during a nationally televised question-and-answer session. The government said Monday it would discuss the panel's new recommendations with Parliament and journalists. The review also said journalists should re-examine what some see as an excessive focus on personalities rather than issues, "the desire to tell the story in 15 seconds ."