The Slogger argues that we need less news and more analysis

As with many things in the digital media age, more is less. More programme repeats and less innovation on screens; and more news around the clock, but less understanding of what’s going on now or – crucially – likely to be coming down the road. Genuine, well-sourced and thoroughly researched news is both harder to find……and easier to refute.

In a uniquely random confluence of events, technology has brought the rapid decline of the offline news sector – and a recession starving the old media of the publicity income not going over lock, stock and barrel to the Net. There are too many offerings chasing too little money: even the veteran Newscorp leviathan is struggling.

While the commercial effects are there for all to see, the cultural effects are as yet less obvious. But they are real enough: Murdoch himself has pointed out that without highly paid and skilled journalists, there can be neither quality nor liberty in the news. Counterfeit information is already near-ubiquitous. The Iraq Inquiry in particular is showing how in 2010 Britain, it is easier for public figures to lie than ever before. Not only to lie: but to get away with it. As the election approaches, this could easily produce a result based on ‘news’ information that is a complete forgery.

So why is it that with more information than ever before, there are more scot-free liars in public life than ever before?

For one thing, the mania for 24/7 news itself creates more space to fill. The explosion in showbizz and sport celebrity coverage was a direct result of this. Spotting a growing sector, newspapers, television and website information providers filled the emptiness with visible emptiness – and caused an enormous degree of distraction from what (I would dare to suggest) are the more important economic, political, health, educational and justice crises we face.

This situation has been exacerbated by the rapid realisation – among those at the top in business and government – that the internet offered them the chance to hide dirty linen, and hide from their responsibilities. Ministries, local authorities, ISPs and politicians have all become adept at giving the appearance of open house, in a reality consisting largely of locked doors behind high-security fences.

Less and less information is physically recorded, while more and more responsibilities are ‘addressed’ by furnishing the frustrated complainant with chat forums and tiny email complaint forms. In such a world, Freedom of Information is an Act, not a fact: the media rely on leaks to that hardworking journalistic minority still keen to get at the truth.

The information explosion has further made it harder to prove things, and easier to refute them. This ought to work equally for both good and evil, but it doesn’t: as always, revelation is about access. The Prime Minister told Chilcot he put £18 billion into the giving the armed forces everything they asked for in Iraq. The Generals and better-informed bloggers say that both the assertion and the figure represent a scandalous fantasy.

But the Prime Minister has access to eight different interview studios, half a dozen spin doctors and a couple of tame editors. Armed with these, he can smear opponents and obfuscate with yet more figures and new lies. Very few people have the time to chase down more mendacity and sources: in the news-now culture, things move on and stories get dropped.

Gordon Brown – who stands accused of murderous parsimony – switched overnight in front of the Chilcot panellists from Careful-with-our-cash Chancellor to the Generous people’s Prime Minister engaged in a ceaseless fight against tyranny. This seemed to most intelligent observers to be a presentation lacking in any credibility; but Brown got away with it.

That would be bad enough in any normal context. But in one where the most crucial election in decades is imminent, it is a very serious threat to honest democracy. The Iraq War will be one of the least important issues from here onwards. The biggest one (I suspect) will concern trust: trust in the honesty and determination of political leaders when it comes to our financial and economic situation. But this is proving almost impossible to judge.

Take the National Debt. Information hype, rebuttal, selective comparisons, and donor distractions have ensured that most voters are already completely confused about just how immediate and drastic the UK’s deficit reduction action should be. This is precisely what the Government wants – and a tentative Conservative response has played right into New Labour’s hands.

As for the economic situation, Lord Mandelson has played a masterly hand of brag by suggesting the recovery is real, and the private sector can cope. But there are signs that the Bank of England’s Mervyn King will inject more QE – and before the Election. Mandelson will then, probably, find a rationale – safety first in the task of ensuring full recovery – to offset any scurrilous, anti-British talk of upcoming doom. In April, the next set of quarterly figures will be out. But they will be ‘topline’ – initial figures subject to change.

The Government strategy is to suggest that those nasty Tories will slash services ‘more deeply and furiously’ to quote Mandelson’s oddly coined phrase. Not only will that hurt you the voter, it will stop ‘the recovery’ dead. The facts point rather more convincingly to a fiscal and economic meltdown unless some immediate (and decisive) action is taken to calm the credit markets. But how many people do you know who understand credit markets – and if they do, have the time to assess the information about them? How many voters in your constituency have worked out our massive overdependence on financial services and lack of manufacturing base?

My point is this: the overwhelming majority of the electorate don’t know what to do with this level and kind of information: but the Parties and Leaders involved in the General
Election know precisely how to use that constant stream. They will spin it, bend it, hide it and misrepresent it. And the voters (as we can see already) are desperate to believe we can get out of our hole with minimal pain. I feel certain they can’t – but my opinion is based on experience, time, interviewing the informed, and using common sense. I too may be completely wrong: but I have a far better chance than most of being right.

Looked at in their entirety, the side-effects and ramifications of an information explosion have cultural disaster area written all over them. We are busy creating a world in which everyone is far too busy receiving reportage to understand it. Distraction, ignorance, and cynical spin make things worse

‘Information is power’ was a common phrase in my youth. If we’re not careful, in the future counterfeit information will offer absolute power to the very people who are most likely to abuse it.