Redditch Labour MP Chris Bloore has launched an extraordinary attack on one of his constituency’s long-established local newspapers, branding its national political coverage “meaningless clickbait tosh” after it published an entirely legitimate story about divisions within his own party over welfare reform.
There is an old political rule about not picking unnecessary fights with people who buy ink by the barrel. Chris Bloore appears not to have heard of it.
The Labour MP for Redditch has taken to Facebook to attack the Redditch Standard over a national news article concerning Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s emerging welfare plans and the prospect of opposition from Labour backbenchers.
Bloore described the coverage as “meaningless clickbait tosh” and claimed it “demeans the work of good local journalists”.
His apparent offence? The newspaper reported a national political story he didn’t like.
The article, headlined “Burnham braces for welfare revolt from his own MPs before he’s even published a policy”, reported on concerns among Labour MPs about the direction of the Government’s welfare reforms.
It included the arguments of Labour critics Kim Johnson and John McDonnell. It set out Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden’s case for reform. It reported criticism from the Conservatives and Reform UK. It explained the Government’s interest in the Dutch welfare model and made perfectly clear that formal proposals were not expected until the autumn.
In other words, it reported the political argument. Bloore apparently considers this “tosh”.
Perhaps Mr Bloore should learn how local newspapers survive
There is a wider point here which an MP might have considered before publicly attacking a local business in his own constituency.
Britain’s local newspaper industry has spent years battling collapsing print circulation, rising costs, disappearing advertising revenue and the migration of readers and advertisers to enormous global technology platforms.
Publishers have had to adapt.
One way regional newspaper groups do that is by supplementing traditional local journalism with national and international stories that attract online readership.
Why? Because newspapers need readers.
Online traffic generates advertising revenue. That revenue helps pay the bills. And those bills include the cost of employing journalists to cover the council meetings, court cases, planning disputes, community events, charities, businesses and local campaigns that MPs are so fond of praising when the coverage happens to suit them.
Readers also happen to enjoy national news.
The idea that somebody interested in what is happening in Redditch cannot possibly also be interested in what is happening in Westminster is absurd.
Local people pay national taxes. They use the NHS. They receive pensions and benefits. They pay energy bills. They send their children to schools. They are affected by immigration, welfare, taxation, housing policy and decisions made in Downing Street.
National politics is local.
Happy with the coverage when it’s about him?
There is another rather awkward element to Bloore’s attack.
The Redditch Standard has repeatedly covered Chris Bloore and his work as the town’s MP. His campaigns, constituency activities and interventions have been given space in the newspaper. Quite right too.
He is the elected Member of Parliament and what he does on behalf of Redditch residents is newsworthy.
But there cannot be one rule when the newspaper is reporting favourably on Chris Bloore and another when it reports uncomfortable developments involving the Labour Government.
That isn’t how a free press works.
An MP doesn’t get to enjoy local newspaper coverage when it amplifies his campaigns and then denounce the same newspaper’s journalism as “meaningless clickbait tosh” when the subject becomes politically inconvenient.
That looks less like a principled defence of journalism and rather more like a politician objecting to journalism he doesn’t like.
So what was actually wrong?
This is the question Bloore conspicuously failed to answer.
What fact in the article was wrong?
If a newspaper publishes something inaccurate, an MP should challenge it. If somebody has been misquoted, correct the quote. If statistics are wrong, provide the correct figures. If a politician’s position has been misrepresented, explain how.
Bloore instead complained that he wasn’t contacted for comment, pointing out that he had previously been one of Labour’s welfare rebels.
But the article wasn’t about Chris Bloore.
It was a clearly labelled NATIONAL NEWS story about the Prime Minister, the Work and Pensions Secretary, Labour backbenchers and opposition parties.
There is no sensible journalistic principle requiring a regional newspaper to telephone its constituency MP for comment every time it publishes a national story involving that MP’s political party.
Had the article claimed that Bloore supported welfare cuts when he had actually rebelled against them, he would have had every reason to complain.
It didn’t.
Labour’s problem isn’t the reporting
Perhaps the real problem for Labour politicians is that there is currently an awful lot of uncomfortable news to report.
The answer to that isn’t to attack newspapers for reporting it.
The job of a newspaper isn’t to protect the Government from embarrassing headlines.
Nor is the job of a regional newspaper simply to reproduce MPs’ press releases, photograph them at community events and dutifully publicise their campaigns.
A newspaper should do all of those community things, but it should also scrutinise politicians and governments. That principle doesn’t suddenly disappear because the resulting article annoys the local MP.
Bloore finished his Facebook broadside by calling for debate to take place “in good faith”.
That’s an admirable principle.
Perhaps he could start by applying it to the newspaper serving his own constituents.
Calling legitimate journalism “meaningless clickbait tosh” because you dislike its subject matter isn’t much of a contribution to good-faith debate.
And publicly attacking a local newspaper which has repeatedly provided coverage of your own parliamentary and constituency work seems remarkably short-sighted.
Chris Bloore hasn’t exposed a scandal at the Redditch Standard.
He has exposed something rather more mundane: a politician who appears perfectly comfortable with the local press when it reports the stories he wants people to read, but considerably less enthusiastic when it reports stories his party would probably rather they didn’t.
That isn’t a press problem.
It’s a politician problem.
By Claire Bullivant
