Last week, Mick Barton, the Reform UK leader of Nottinghamshire Council banned his councillors from engaging with journalists from Nottinghamshire Live.
In a statement on Reform’s Facebook page, they said, “we will not be engaging with Nottinghamshire Live or with any media outlet we consider to be consistently misreporting our policies, actions or intentions.”
Putting aside the fact that Nottinghamshire Live would vehemently deny that that is what they’ve been doing, when politicians start only answering questions from selected, favoured journalists, then we’re on a very slippery slope. (Nottinghamshire Live’s version of events can be read here.)
Inevitably, what follows is:
- political decisions go unscrutinised
- the public becomes increasingly ill-informed
- good governance declines and corruption increases
- lies proliferate and trust breaks down
- politics becomes increasingly tribal, with allegiances based on gut rather than on anything approximating the truth
Barton is not the first to try to sideline journalists doing their jobs; Suella Braverman, former Conservative home secretary, excluded BBC and Guardian journalists from a trip to Rwanda in 2023; in 2019, Boris Johnson banned his ministers from appearing on the Today programme and, more recently, Donald Trump excluded AP journalists from certain press events for refusing to bend the knee with regards his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
Dawn Alford, chief executive of the Society of Editors, called Barton’s decision “profoundly wrong”: “Political parties must welcome scrutiny, not silence it. When councillors refuse to answer questions or provide information, they’re not just shutting out the press – they’re shutting out the public they serve.”
Chris Morley, NUJ Northern & Midlands senior organiser, said: “If reporters are barred from interviewing key councillors about … decisions, it risks creating a vacuum of democracy.”
And in a statement, NUJ Reach Local Democracy Reporter chapel said: “We wholly support the unrestricted and fettered right of the free press to scrutinise those in any elected office, of any political persuasion, without fear or favour… Elected politicians, appointed by the public, need to defend their actions and statements to the press, who represent the interests of the wider public, not hide away in the shadows.”
Any self-respecting news media outlet should agree, push back against such bans and rally in support of excluded titles and their journalists.
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