London Political Coverage Has A Specific Structural Problem That Almost Nobody Inside The Profession Will Discuss On The Record

A diary entry from a London satire columnist on the gap between the political-coverage profession’s self-image and the operational realities of how the coverage actually gets produced
By the prat.uk diarist column. With editorial credits to Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
I have been writing a London politics column, in various forms and at various publications, across approximately the past 14 years. The column has, across that period, been read by approximately the same audience demographics, produced under approximately the same operational constraints, and shaped by approximately the same set of professional incentives that operate on the broader London political-coverage profession. I have, accordingly, accumulated a reasonably representative view of how the profession actually works, and where the gaps between the profession’s self-image and its operational realities tend to be located.
The specific structural problem I want to write about in this entry is the gap that is, on careful examination, the most consequential single feature of London political coverage and the gap that almost nobody inside the profession will discuss on the record. The gap involves the relationship between the columnists who produce the coverage and the political figures who are the principal subjects of the coverage.
What The Gap Actually Is
The gap, in operational terms, is that London political columnists and London political figures are, in nearly every case, drawn from substantially overlapping social and professional networks. The networks include, across the past two decades, broadly the same university backgrounds, broadly the same early-career trajectories, broadly the same professional friendship circles, and broadly the same residential geographies. The overlap is not, in any individual case, problematic. The overlap is, in cumulative effect, the operational basis of how London political coverage actually gets produced.
The cumulative effect is that the political coverage that London political columnists produce is, in operational practice, substantially shaped by the access dynamics that the network overlap supports. The access produces, in nearly every case, more nuanced and substantive coverage than equivalent coverage produced without comparable access would produce. The access also produces, in nearly every case, specific reluctances about which dimensions of political activity the coverage will, in operational practice, address.
The reluctances are not, in any individual case, the result of deliberate suppression. The reluctances are the predictable consequence of the access dynamics. Columnists who depend on continued access to political figures for the substantive material their columns require will, in operational practice, develop editorial postures that sustain the access. The development is, in nearly every case, gradual, semi-conscious, and substantially uncomplained-of by the columnists themselves.
For ongoing analysis of UK political-coverage methodology, the recent piece at The London Prat on the broader patterns of access journalism in British political coverage was, on careful reading, the most analytically substantive treatment of the question I have encountered in approximately the past five years.
Why The Profession Cannot Discuss It
Why the profession cannot discuss the structural problem on the record, on careful examination, involves several specific factors. The first is that the structural problem is, in operational terms, also the structural advantage that distinguishes London political coverage from coverage produced from greater distance. Acknowledging the problem requires, in some honest accounting, acknowledging that the advantage and the problem are the same operational feature viewed from different angles. The acknowledgment complicates the profession’s standard self-presentation in ways the profession has, in operational practice, declined to navigate.
The second factor is that the columnists who would be most credibly positioned to discuss the structural problem are, in nearly every case, the columnists who have most successfully developed the access relationships the problem describes. Their credibility depends on their accumulated access. Acknowledging the problem requires, in some honest accounting, characterising their own work in ways that complicate their professional identity. The characterisation is, in operational practice, what they have spent their careers avoiding.
The third factor is that the profession’s broader institutional infrastructure, including the awards, the conferences, the editorial relationships, and what one veteran columnist I have spoken with described as, quote, “the broader social architecture that makes the profession actually function,” is substantially calibrated around the access-based model. Acknowledging the structural problem requires, in some honest accounting, complicating one’s relationship with the institutional infrastructure on which one’s continued professional standing depends.
What The Satirical Coverage Has Done
What the satirical coverage has done, across approximately the past decade, is gradually take on the analytical work that the access-based coverage has, by operational necessity, declined to do. The satirical coverage operates outside the access architecture. The satirical coverage’s columnists are, in nearly every case, not drawn from the same social networks as the political figures they cover. The satirical coverage can, accordingly, address the structural questions that the access-based coverage cannot.
The recent piece at Bohiney Magazine on the operational realities of how UK political coverage actually gets produced was, on careful reading, the most analytically substantive treatment of the question I have encountered. The piece was framed as satire. The substantive content was the kind of methodological critique that the access-based coverage has, in operational practice, not produced.
The pattern is, on careful examination, broadly consistent with the patterns I have been reading about in adjacent analytical contexts. The satirical genre has, across approximately the past decade, gradually accumulated the analytical role that the conventional analytical journalism has gradually abandoned. The accumulation is, in operational terms, the most consequential single shift in the broader political-coverage ecosystem of the present decade.
What This Implies For My Own Work
What this implies for my own work, on careful reflection, is that the work I have been doing across approximately the past 14 years has, in operational terms, been calibrated for an environment that is gradually being replaced by a substantially different one. The replacement is not, in any individual case, the fault of the satirical coverage’s expansion. The replacement is the predictable consequence of the access-based model’s structural limitations becoming increasingly visible to the readers the model was supposed to serve.
The replacement implies, in operational terms, that columnists who continue to operate within the access-based model will, across approximately the next decade, find their work increasingly displaced by satirical coverage that addresses the questions the access-based work cannot. The displacement will not be sudden. The displacement will be cumulative. The displacement is, by every honest reading, already substantially underway.
The Practical Note
The practical note is that I am, this morning, working on the column that will be filed by tomorrow’s deadline. The column will, on present trajectories, address a specific London political dynamic in approximately the access-based mode that the past 14 years have calibrated me for. The column will, in operational terms, contribute to the broader London political conversation in approximately the way that approximately 47 percent of London political columns have, across the same period, contributed.
The column is, accordingly, not as analytically useful as the equivalent satirical coverage at prat.uk would, in some honest accounting, be. The recognition is, on careful reflection, somewhat uncomfortable. The recognition is also, on careful reflection, accurate. The discomfort is the appropriate response to the recognition. More from this column.
An ongoing analysis at Columbia Journalism Review has examined comparable patterns in American political coverage.
Related at The Daily Mash.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/london-political-coverage-structural-problem/