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gotcha questions that the gov will somewhat ignore/not answer straight
Exactly! Do journalists actually expect that Hancock will have some sort of brainfart and straight-up say "yes we fucked up the EU PPE purchasing thing because we are a bunch of rabid, brexit-obsessed incompetents."
ffm-
I think their failure is coming from a few different angles. Most mainstream outlets in the UK (bar perhaps the dreaded Daily Mail) have failed to really work out how to exist as a functioning and effective outlet of journalism in the age of the internet. Most of them just made their websites free and thus entered the dog shit eat dog shit world of chasing the bottom of the barrel for clicks. As opposed to maintaining some kind of integrity by charging (As they had done for years via the newspaper). So they are now in a not-so- new landscape which they still haven't fully worked out. Combined with the inate snobism that comes from oxbridge graduates working for presitigious papers sharing the downing street press room with LadBible and BuzzFeed who are much more successful atm.
then on top of that you have the catastrophic dismantling of trust in journalists over the past few years (See that poll from last week) - which basically forces them to go for the headline/gotcha in the hope that they seem like they're asking the real questions, rather than focus on providing actual good, proper and hold-them-to-account journalism which certainly requires a less direct approach and a more probing one.
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I have no idea why they are letting the politics reporters do all the briefings instead of the Science or Health correspondents who might have some more relevant questions rather than the same drivel everyday
rakesmith
greentricky
Absolutely, completely agree. The state of journalism here at the moment has them completely misjudging the difference between gotcha questions that the gov will somewhat ignore/not answer straight, and tougher actual questions that raise real criticisms (à la Piers Morgan atm, bleurgh)
The sooner journalism in this country isn't some shoe in oxbridge son/daughter of some senior management/gov advisor situation the better.