Is this the job of jouranlists? Guardian reporters pull stunt at Labour...

[AP]

...conference to make Blair look bad, and other media reports it as news.
--
Delegates also united this morning in cheering a condemnation by the CAC of the Guardian's "Mr Blair, we're here to help" feature.

As part of the stunt Guardian journalists had handed out leaflets to delegates queuing for the conference hall suggesting how long a standing ovation they give Tony Blair's speech yesterday.

"Conference should be clear that the party had nothing to do with these leaflets," delegates were told.

Following the mention of the Guardian's name - "that trusted friend" - they then united in good natured booing.

The Labour party has asked the newspapers that reported the stunt as an actual party's operation to print corrections.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2003/story/0,13803,1053418,00.html

[Mairead]

1. I suspect it might have been meant as a belated poke at

how closely entwined Bush and Bleurgh are. Since Bush's handlers specify things like that....

[AP]

2. Do you think it's right for a journalist to pass this stuff out and then

have the news report it as something Labour did.

Don't you think that's, uh, incredibly wrong?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. "have the news report it"?

The Guardian doesn't have editorial control over other papers. Yes, it was a stunt. No, it wasn't wrong. British media regularly take the piss out of politicians. See, for instance, Simon Hoggart's columns in the Guardian, or other 'parliamentary sketches'.

[AP]

4. I can't believe you're defending this. The news is trying to create news

and that news they were creating was a total lie.

The issue here isn't whether the Guardian should control the content of other papers. The issue is whether they should be MAKING content for other newspapers, especially considering the content was a lie.

Whether they've done it before isn't relevant either. You can't make this behaviour acceptable by repeating it.

Doesn't anyone here have the courage to put aside their dislike of Tony Blair and say this was wrong?

Or perhaps, does anyone have a little more courage to ask themselves whether, if this is how the media behaves, they should be considering some of the other things they've seen in the media representation of this Labour government?

Is there a pattern here? Gilligan. The Guardian. Hmm.

[dfong63]

6. the pattern? using journalists as scapegoats or as a smokescreen

... to distract from the wrongdoing of those in power.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Lighten up, AP

it was a joke! Tony Blair realised it was irony, why can't you?

You're the one who said the Guardian had the news report it as something Labour did.

If you really think the content was a lie, do you mean that no-one in the Labour party does love Tony? Even I wouldn't claim that.

(On edit: I thought it was Blair himself who identified the stunt as ironic. It wasn't, it was just 'a delegate').

[AP]

9. "Lighten up"? If the Post or the NYT did this in the US with Clinton, what

do you think the reaction would be here at DU?

The content that was a lie was that "Labour party members passed out instructions on how long to applaud Blair".

Do you see how nefarious this is? (And I'm going to appologize in advance if I'm invoking the paraphrasing of Molly Ivins viz Bush again -- the thing about politics today, is that everything the media and the RW does makes me feel paranoid.)

Everyone knew that Blair was going to give a brilliant speech. Everyone knew that the TV coverage was going to include shots of heartfelt standing ovations for Blair.

If you're the media and you have a project to discredit the PM and make him seem untrustworthy, what do you do? Well, you have to undermine the fact that he's going to inevitably get those standing ovations. Well, you arrange this little scheme which makes people think that the standing ovations are on the instruction of the Party. And it looks like some news outlets reported this as fact.

I don't care how much of a joke this is, or whatever. But, the fact that it works so nicely into the general themes of being anti-Blair, I find it worth noting that it's outrageously disgusting.

[Mairead]

12. I think the point might be that the other papers should not have

accepted it on face value. They should have checked it out. That they did accept it at face value says something about what they've been led to expect from Downning Street, don't you think?

[dfong63]

5. was it right for Blair to lie about WMD, then bully the BBC, then crucify

... a good public servant? was it right for Blair to maneuver to block a vote on Iraq at the conference? Blair is a disgrace whose shameful conduct before, during, and after the Iraq war has more than erased whatever good he may have done for Britain in other areas. no man is indispensible, and that goes for Blair too.

[AP]

10. Blair tried to talk Bush out of invading Iraq.

Is it right for Blair to be engaged in battle against fascist RW'ers in the UK and the US that puts him in such a difficult political position?

Is it right for Blair to have a left wing of his party which doesn't understand what's going on?

[the_real_38]

7. they're our brothers, these guys...

... Tony Blair is part of the new global ruling class, and he's allowed his party to be co-opted by corporate influence, the same way the DLC has, here. There's a global struggle going on against these f***ers - and we need to support it.

[AP]

11. Jeezus. Blair is the guy trying to spead power and wealth among the bottom

three quintiles rather than the top 1%.

[Mairead]

13. AP, I think you've been reading Blair's press releases too long

He's not doing anything of the sort. Just LOOK at the direction he's taking Britain in. Like Clinton, who smiled and played the sax to show how much a regular guy he is--while presiding over the shredding of the safety net, the increased wiretapping and militarisation of police, the creation of NAFTA, the WTO, strenthening of the IMF with its vicious policies,...the list goes on. Blair's been doing the same to Britain.