You say: 'They are clueless because they have no idea how journalism works.'

So, in what way does journalism work that they are so clueless about?

Colin Meek wrote: You say: 'They are clueless because they have no idea how journalism works.'

So, in what way does journalism work that they are so clueless about?

I think a good indication is the challenge in their last email to Boyd Tonkin: "Are you suppressing this book because it contains criticism of the Independent?"

To decide not to review a book is not to suppress it. To suggest that - and to attribute to it that particular cause - I think indicates that they are light years away in understanding from the world that journalism operates in. I almost can't begin to explain it, because I can barely enter into the mind of someone who thinks it is an act of suppression not to accept the offer of a book review.

More generally, I'd point to their claims that the "media are hierarchies of power - journalists know they are accountable to no one but their managers, owners and parent companies. They are not accountable to the public, to reviewers, and certainly not to dissidents challenging their employers". And again, "corporate journalists treat the media as their private fiefdoms, their private property".

They put it very tendentiously and accusatorily, but in essence they are right. In my experience it is in journalists' blood, or driven into them in training, that they are not beholden to anyone or any vested interest. There are no stories that must be covered. And there are no stories that they are under an obligation not to cover either. What would MediaLens wish to replace that with? A duty to portray a dissident view? Enshrined where? An obligation to cover stories or print opinions that their editorial judgment tells them their readers don't want, but that someone (who? what?) tells them that they must. A compact by which they would print reviews because reviewers thought they were important?

What world are they conjuring up? What understanding of a free press in a capitalist society do they have, and how does their vision fit it? Again, I hardly know where to begin in showing how different that is from the way journalism works. When I re-read their sentences about hierarchies and accountability to no one but themselves, I find myself nodding in agreement, then saying, "Yes, and your point is?"

Having said that, newspapers and magazine are not insensitive to criticism and do take notice of feedback from readers. But to stage write-in campaigns is to damage any case you have terminally. The Guardian readers editor, in my experience a fair minded man with massive experience of journalism, has articulated his attitude with reference to the recent controversy over a profile of Chomsky:

Throughout the entire period of my consideration of the complaint I, like Emma Brockes, was among the targets of an electronic lobby group, Media Lens, lobbying broadly in protest at the treatment of Prof Chomsky. Other targets included the editor of the Guardian.

I did not engage with or respond to this lobby, whose members poured several hundred emails into the Guardian. I did not read more than a tiny sample of the emails directed at me. I consider organised lobbies in general to be in effect - whatever the rights or wrongs of their position - oppressive to put it mildly. In the case of Media Lens, those who respond to their Media Alerts are asked to be polite. They do not all manage to follow that advice. I also consider that it is unreasonable to expect me to read the contents of any email bombardment while dealing with a complaint from the principal person involved.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1665220,00.html

I think to alienate Ian Mayes so profoundly - if your aim is to improve journalism - takes a certain amount of cluelessness.

Finally, I'm sorry you don't like the word clueless. I find it, and meant it, as quite an affectionate term. I refer to myself as clueless quite often.

Best
Les

OK Les. I thought you were having a go at their stance on accuracy, honesty and fairness rather than their objection to corporate journalism. So my fears I had for your stance were unfounded.
However, I must say I do sympathise with their point that a national press that is so intimately woven into the fabric of big business and the corporate agenda inevitably ends up with its ethics severely challenged, often frayed and sometimes torn apart.
On that point we'll probably have to agree to differ.