Page 92 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 71

THE MEDIA AS POLITICAL ACTORS
‘speak the language’ of its readers, or at least to speak in a language which
does not offend them unduly.
It has been argued by some that the commercial status of newspapers
over-rides any political objectives which they may have, and as I suggested
above, the shift in so many British newspapers’ editorial allegiances from
Conservative to Labour in 1997 was largely due to harsh commercial calcu-
lations of where the readers were going. But as James Curran and others
have convincingly argued (Curran and Seaton, 2009) and as the actions and
declarations of the media barons, past and present, make abundantly clear,
the benefits of newspaper ownership, for those few multimillionaires able to
afford it, are not just those of short-term profit. Corporate giants such as
News Corp have an obvious interest in shaping the political environment of
the markets in which they operate. If they can do so effectively, as Rupert
Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi have shown, the longer-term financial (and
in the latter case, political) rewards can be enormous.

THE JOURNALIST AS PUNDIT

Newspaper editorials, while they are unmistakably subjective expressions of
opinion, are rarely signed by a particular editor or journalist. Authored
political journalism, on the other hand, will be contained in columns, fea-
tures articles and a variety of shorter formats such as diaries and cartoons,
some of which have a satirical function. We are now moving into the realm
of the political ‘pundit’, a term derived from Sanskrit which dates from the
early nineteenth century and survives in modern India to refer to a ‘learned
person or teacher who is not only an authority but also a renowned political
figure’ (Nimmo and Combs, 1992, p. 6).
Since Walter Lippmann legitimised the profession of journalism in the early
twentieth century, what Nimmo and Combs refer to as a ‘priestly establish-
ment’ has evolved. This establishment of pundits they define as ‘a loose collec-
tivity of journalists, analysts, policy experts, and other specialists who voice
their special knowledge in public forums’ (ibid., p. 24). The journalist-pundit
is someone who is accepted by a newspaper reader as an authority on political
affairs. Such a person becomes ‘a source of opinion-formation and opinion-
articulation, agenda-setting and agenda-evaluation’ (ibid., p. 8). The journalist-
pundit is a wise, knowing observer of and commentator on the political scene,
making sense of its complexities for the rest of us.
To achieve such status the pundit must also be accepted by the political
class, so that he or she can move among them, gather information – often in
confidence – and make reliable judgments. Thus, the journalist-pundit is part
of the political world, moving in it with ease, but distanced from the political
fray. It remains the case that political journalists will usually reflect the
partisanship of the newspapers which employ them. Indeed, a pundit’s access

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