Shooting the Messenger

quotTruthquot is an increasingly elastic concept with anyone putting the counter argument being seen as straight wrong Discourse exchanges of views civilized argument and debate are all in short supplyIn the UK we are currently witnessing the spectacle of the governing party the Conservatives choosing a new leader to replace Boris Johnson The person selected by around 160000 Conservative Party members will become the next Prime MinisterThis process involves what seem like endless hustings hosted by this or that broadcaster and featuring the two candidates performing in front of those with a vote Remember the voters in this case are a slither of the population and are by no means representative The candidates play to the gallery going for instant applause over any discussion around detailed policy intentionsOne guaranteed crowd pleaser is to blame the media for pretty well anything and certainly for the downfall of the current PM The same quotblame the mediaquot phenomenon was seen in the US during the last election cycle at Trump ralliesNever mind that much of the time the media were reporting on certain behavioursThis is not a political blog but this quotshoot the messengerquot thinking is dangerous Omar Oakes summed it up well in his Mediatel Media Leaders column this weekThe question is what can or indeed should the commercial side of the media industry do about it if anythingI commented on Oakes39 piece at the time and make no apology for making the same points again hereI see two courses of action one regulatory one commercialOn the regulatory front letting the Conservative Governments of Cameron and May get away with cancelling Leveson 2 without so much as even a minor fuss was a mistake Leveson 2 was the recommended followup to Lord Leveson39s enquiry into phone hacking to fuel stories in our newspapersPart Two was planned to address the ohsocozy relationship between newspapers politicians and the police It was quietly dropped following pressure from key newspaper proprietorsAdvertising trade bodies and lobby groups should call for it to be resurrected as a way of rebuilding confidence in an independent free press Commercially today39s sales directors really have zero influence over their papers39 editorial policyIt was not always so Harold Evans the legendary editor of The Sunday Times preMurdoch famously consulted his sales director before embarking on his landmark thalidomide campaign He Evans would no doubt have done what he did anyway and his sales director encouraged him to do what he saw as the quotright thingquot in any case but the point is he did think it important to consultWhat about the influence today of advertisers and pressure groups like Stop Funding HateAdvertisers buy audiences They are or should be agnostic editorially Would you prefer a newspaper edited by Paul Dacre or Procter and Gamble The very fact that I am asking that question should make the pointAdvertisers define the audiences they want to reach in a number of ways as we all knowWhat if certain beliefs even political beliefs were an audience determinatorWhat if political persuasion was a demographic What if TGI39s lifestyle questions included statements on topics like immigration or even Brexit What if you could buy campaigns against a target of committed remainers or leaversIt is not correct to say these views have no impact on purchasing It would be interesting to ask James Dyson a famously committed Brexiter whether his views impacted salesWhy would the Dyson people want to target committed remainers with their adsWhat if a newspaper39s more extreme editorial views had commercial consequencesIt39s an interesting question that I have posed before here in 2017But here39s the thing The Cog Blog is noncommercial I don39t charge anything for it as it gives me the freedom to be to paraphrase Bob Hoffman quotan indiscriminate insulterquotBut I do look at the number of people accessing the posts this varies by a factor of 10 even 20 And this one on advertisers and editorial was way down the league table For such an important topic this surprised meIn the last five years the issue has become more extremeWe should not ignore this matter We are due a debateClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Shooting the Messenger

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Brian Jacobs

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Shooting the Messenger

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