Soundbites and spin doctors
Subtitle: how politicians manipulate the media and vice versa
By: Nicholas Jones.
Publisher: Cassell; Orion Publishing Group, Limited
Published: 1995
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 234
Subjects: Press and politics -- Great Britain.; Government and the press -- Great Britain.; Spin doctors -- Great Britain.; Manipulative behavior.; Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1979-1997.
Description: The relationship between British politicians and the news media is ambivalent. Politicians are quick to complain about media distortion and intrusion, and as quick to offer themselves to media exposure when it is in their interests to do so. And the media affect indignation at any suggestion of 'setting up' politicians while continually trying to lure political figures into the careless phrase or indiscretion which will trigger a news story.

Lubricating this relationship are press secretaries and the parliamentary lobby, the image consultants and the spin doctors, some of whom have become almost as familiar as the politicians themselves.

The staple elements of reporting have become the soundbite - the short, pithy statement encapsulating a political position or reaction - and the photo-opportunity, the photographic session contrived to make a statement: John Selwyn Gummer feeding a British-beef hamburger to his daughter, David Mellor posing with his family as a sex scandal reverberates around him.
Notes: Includes index.