By Nicholas Jones (speaking during a visit by the Norwegian Institute of Journalism, London, 17 October 2006)

Who sets the news agenda for the British press? Is it the journalists themselves or are there also hidden influences at work? If there is one characteristic which marks out British newspapers from their counterparts around the world it is their ability to set the agenda.  Indeed the British press is by far the most inventive and perhaps the most sensational when it comes to the art of manufacturing exclusive stories which are often so effective in grabbing the headlines that they simply cannot be ignored by the rest of the news media.

But first let me pay tribute to the sheer inventiveness and bravura of British newspapers.  It is difficult to know where to start in the hit parade of "world exclusives" which have filled the front pages of the popular press.  Perhaps I should begin at the very top with the Queen and Buckingham Palace.  Under the red banner headline "Intruder" over the picture of a palace flunkey, the Daily Mirror published its scoop about the "biggest royal security scandal ever".  It was the story of how a Mirrorman, reporter Ryan Parry, had been "a palace footman for two months....and was able to prepare the Queen's breakfast and take pictures of the bed which President George Bush slept in" the previous night. (Daily Mirror 19.11.2003) 

This formula is a hardy perennial for newspapers, the trick of asking a reporter to fool the authorities so as to expose their weaknesses and highlight potential dangers to the public.  Here was the Sun using the same technique in the aftermath of the row about whether Muslim women should be asked to remove their veils: "Hidden Danger" was the headline on the Sun's exclusive about the "veiled Sun girl waved through UK airport" in a security shambles which revealed that airport staff had failed to ask her to lift her veil. (Sun 9.10.2006)

When it comes to awarding the accolades for campaigning, I suppose the News of the World has to be the newspaper that remains head and shoulders above its competitors.  "Named, Shamed" was the headline over the photographs of four "highly dangerous paedophiles", pictures which it claimed were being published "By order of Scotland Yard."  (News of the World 16.12.2001)   Earlier that year Britain's biggest selling newspaper had itself become headline news when it sparked a political storm by provoking something of a witch hunt after it began identifying known paedophiles by publishing their photographs.  The editor justified the paper's campaign for what it called "Sarah's Law" on the grounds that Britain needed an equivalent of the American legislation known as Megan's Law which provides parents in the United States with access to information on sex offenders in their locality. 

Again, earlier in October, we saw how the News of the World demonstrated that same flair for exploiting public fears by launching its "Devil Dogs Campaign", demanding that dog owners should be made criminally liable for attacks by dogs like Rottweilers. (News of the World  1.10.2006) There is, it seems, no limit to the ingenuity of the British press when it comes to whipping up pressure for instant action by the authorities.

Bearing in mind the strength of the competition and the intense rivalry between the national newspapers, it should really come as no surprise that smart people in the public relations industry soon began to see ways of utilising this insatiable appetite for exclusive stories.  An early and ground-breaking attempt to take advantage of these competitive pressures emerged in the 1970s during an era of hostile takeovers in the City of London.  Public relations consultants seized their opportunity by finding ways to dictate the news agenda in the financial pages of the Sunday newspapers which have always had bigger sales and a higher readership than their daily counterparts. 

Once the London Stock Market closed each Friday afternoon, selected information was leaked to financial journalists on the business desks in the hope of influencing share prices ready for  when the markets re-opened on Monday morning. Invariably the aim was to build up support for a predatory bid for one of the big companies which had become a target for a City of London takeover. Ultimately, after the "Friday night drop" became such an obvious abuse because it encouraged insider share dealing, the Financial Services Authority had to take  action and in 2001 it acquired the power to prosecute companies which fail to ensure the "full, accurate and timely disclosure" of price-sensitive data.  

No such sanctions apply at Westminster despite ample evidence that the release of sensitive political information has been manipulated and used to influence the news agenda.  Not surprisingly, in view of the lack disciplinary procedures, ministers and their aides have found they have nothing to fear, even if they are implicated in the leaking of government decisions and announcements.  I was intrigued to discover that during the mid 1980s the Labour Party's newly-appointed publicity director Peter Mandelson was told by one of the country's most successful financial consultants that his first task was to learn how information could be traded like a currency in return for favourable news coverage from journalists and their newspapers.   

Therefore when looked at from the perspective of Tony Blair and his infamous spin doctors, one of the great success stories in the early years of the Labour government was their ability to manipulate the media and dictate the news agenda.  The great strength of Mandelson, and then Alastair Campbell, was that they understood the media mindset; they knew how desperate journalists had become in an increasingly competitive environment; how Labour might be able to turn to the party's advantage the worrying reality that today's journalists are judged more by their success in delivering exclusive stories than perhaps by their news judgement, accuracy or reliability.

Mandelson, Campbell & Co realised how journalists are willing to co-operate, yes even  collude, in generating stories which are often presented as if they are the product of journalistic endeavour.  For the word "leak" we should often read "plant" because it is more than likely the "exclusive" has been handed over on a plate, deliberately leaked by a public relations consultant or spin doctor in return for favourable coverage.  Over the years it is the Sunday newspapers which have notched up the greatest achievements when it comes to setting the agenda.  A quick glance through what they have to offer each weekend reveals story after story trailing government announcements and previewing decisions. 

Because they are seen as the best platform for building up interest in what is being announced in the week ahead, a great deal effort goes into trying to attract their attention. This is how it works. When Tony Blair became Prime Minister, Alastair Campbell effectively took control of the government's information service.  Each department was supplied with two or three Labour Party spin doctors whose job it is to advise ministers on their media strategies and then ensure they are implemented by the press officers employed within the civil service.  By Thursday of each week the Prime Minister's office in Downing Street has usually agreed the grid -- that is the plan for the following week -- fixing the days for important announcements and the launch of new government initiatives. 

Once the grid has been settled, the spin doctors work out how each decision should be promoted. They decide which newspaper and even which journalist should be given exclusive information on an off-the-record basis in an attempt to steer news coverage in the direction which the government wants.  The big difference, which Campbell pushed through, is that government information officers now have the authority to trail announcements; indeed they are instructed to "grab the agenda" by ringing round journalists offering stories.  Previously this was against the civil service code: an announcement had to be made first in Parliament.

In effect this trade has become institutionalised within Whitehall, although I believe it has weakened parliamentary accountability and undermined standards in political journalism.  Because the information is invariably traded on an off-the-record basis all the quotes tend to be anonymous; "government sources say this", "ministerial advisers reveal that",  and so on.  We have a generation of political correspondents who are only too happy to accept information on this basis. The danger of a culture in which stories are written without direct sourcing is that it can be a licence to journalists to embellish their reports and even manufacture the quotes. 

Of the Sunday papers, it is the Sunday Times, with a circulation of 1.3 million, which is seen as perhaps the most effective in setting the agenda for the week ahead.  Its strength as the best Sunday platform makes it an obvious target for spin doctors anxious to promote government announcements.  It is also considered to be the ideal recipient for leaked documents because it is just as eager to exploit illicit disclosures. 

Recent front-page leads illustrate an ability to deliver exclusives.  "Reid: We'll risk jail breaks to beat crisis" (Sunday Times 8.10.2006) was the headline over a report about a leaked confidential document revealing that the Home Secretary was ready to take the risk of violent criminals escaping in order to cope with prison overcrowding. The following weekend's lead -- "Blair to toughen rape laws" (Sunday Times 15.10.2006) -- was a classic example of the trailed announcement.  In an exclusive briefing, the paper was told that new legislation in the Queen's Speech (on 15.11.2006) will close a loophole which has allowed thousands of men to escape prosecution.  Two other announcements were trailed in the same edition: "New faith schools must take outsiders" and "Minister backs call for longer holidays". 

The great attention paid by the government to the advance trailing of announcements is one of the legacies of the years Alastair Campbell spent as Blair's director of communications.  The new Conservative Party leader David Cameron, like his immediate predecessors, is promising to curb the power of un-elected spin doctors such as Campbell; he says a future Conservative government would reduce their number by half. But while it is politically convenient for Cameron to attack Blair over his dependence on political spin, the Conservatives are also proving to be increasingly adept at setting the agenda. 

New initiatives by Cameron regularly hit the headlines and he and his advisers are demonstrating in their own way their flair for using the news media to help reposition the Conservative party.  We saw a clear example of this when Cameron declared that the Conservatives had been mistaken in the 1980s for having supported sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.  He believed Margaret Thatcher had been wrong to have branded Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress as terrorists.

What was so astute about the presentation of this significant break with the Conservatives' past was that Cameron gave the story exclusively to the Observer, the Sunday newspaper which in the 1980s was at the forefront of the campaign to support Mandela and the ANC.  Conservative strategists need no reminding that one of the secrets of effective agenda setting is to choose a newspaper which will make the most of an exclusive story.  The front-page headlines justified their choice:  "Cameron: we got it wrong on apartheid. Tory leader dumps key Thatcher legacy". (Observer 27.8.2006) 

An equally impressive grasp of the need to consider where to place a story was displayed with great verve by the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt.  He gave his explosive interview, in which he urged the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, to the Blair-hating Daily Mail rather than to one of the national newspapers closer to the government. The front-page headline could hardly have been clearer: "Exclusive: We must quit Iraq says new head of the Army". (Daily Mail 13.10.2006)  According to the Independent of Sunday (15.10.2006), Sir Richard had specifically selected the Daily Mail and went ahead with the interview despite the unease of the Ministry of Defence.  He realised the pulling power of a newspaper with the second largest circulation in Britain of 2.4 million and he obviously wanted the widest possible publicity for his belief that the continuing presence of British troops "exacerbates security problems' in Iraq. 

If Sir Richard had  spoken to the Sun -- which does all it can to back up "Our Boys" in Iraq -- his comments would also almost certainly have been condemned, if not ridiculed.  Indeed the Sun, which has supported Blair throughout the Iraq War, argued that Sir Richard was "wrong to shoot his mouth off" (Sun 13.10.2006) and was "lucky to have escaped the sack". (14.10.2006)  Timing is of crucial importance in setting the agenda and Sir Richard's calculated attempt to seize the initiative took advantage of the political uncertainty surrounding the departure of Tony Blair and speculation about the likely stance of his successor Gordon Brown towards any possible withdrawal of British troops. 

Alastair Campbell had a sixth sense about knowing when to strike.  Time and again he demonstrated superb judgement in the long campaign running-up to Labour's victory in the 1997 general election. The story which cemented his reputation as the spin doctor to be feared was his orchestration of the defection of the Conservative MP Alan Howarth to the Labour Party on the eve of the Conservatives' 1995 party conference.  Campbell held the story back and offered it as an exclusive to the Observer on the very eve of the conference.  He knew only too well that by timing the release of such a sensational defection for Sunday morning, there was every chance it would dominate the headlines that weekend and sabotage the Conservatives' plan to put on a show of unity at their party conference.  The headline did not exaggerate: "Exclusive: Tories rocked as senior MP defects to Labour" (Observer 8.10.1995) 

Elections, party conferences and other fixtures in the political calendar provide a peg for one of the sure-fire ways for political journalists to create news.  Opinion polls are a regular feature in most newspapers and as the date of their publication is entirely at the discretion of the editor, they can be timed to cause maximum embarrassment for the political parties.  Ever since April 2006, when support for the Conservatives edged ahead of Labour, the findings of opinion surveys have become a growing source of irritation for Blair and his cabinet colleagues.  "Cameron races ahead of Brown in poll for PM" was the Sunday Telegraph's latest contribution (8.10.2006) to a political marathon that will provide plenty of business for the opinion pollsters.  The Sunday Telegraph's poll showed that the Conservative leader had a commanding lead over Gordon Brown as to who voters would prefer as the next Prime Minister. 

What always infuriates the politicians is that it is the journalists who pose the question and they do it in a way that allows the newspaper to keep control of the story.  Opinion surveys provide a rich harvest for the press because for an outlay of a few thousand pounds the questions -- and results -- can be tailored to address the burning issues of the day.  "Stand up to US, voters tell Blair" was the Guardian's front-page lead (25.7.2006) over a survey which showed that 63 per cent of the electorate believed Blair had tied Britain too close to the White House; "Ten million want to quit 'over-taxed' UK" was the finding of a poll for the Sunday Times (27.8.2006) which revealed that one in five Britons was considering leaving the country; and the Guardian followed up the criticism of Muslim women for refusing to remove their veils with a survey which showed "Most people want Muslims to try harder to integrate". (Guardian 14.10.2006). 

Money is no object once the tabloids have a sensational story in their sights.  Britain's media proprietors have the deepest pockets and will readily outbid each other -- and the rest of the world -- in buying up sensational disclosures, in confronting the rich and famous and in exposing who they believe are the villains.  Perhaps the front-page headline to beat all others was "The End" --  the story of how the Sun arranged for the arrest in Rio de Janeiro of Britain's most infamous train robber, Ronnie Biggs, hired a private plane to fly him to London and then, after thirty five years on the run, handed Biggs over to Scotland Yard. (Sun 8.5.2001). 

The Sun's stable mate the News of the World has its own investigations editor, Mazher Mahmood, who has been dubbed the Fake Sheikh, and has a his string of exclusives to his name.  His skill in fooling celebrities is legendary and by exposing the willingness of England's football manager Sven Goran Eriksson to make under-the-counter money out of the game, he confirmed what many fans suspected.  "Sven's Dirty Deals" (News of the World 15.1.2006) was just one of a clutch exclusives which dominated the headlines for weeks. 

"Faria: My Story" (News of the World 8.8.2004) opened the doors on "Svengate" and the sexual liaisons of Faria Alam, a lowly secretary at the Football Association who earned herself hundreds of thousands of pounds with her kiss-n-tell disclosures.  Here were saw at work a truly British phenomenon, the powerful publicist Max Clifford, who was Faria's agent.  He secured her the biggest possible payout by selling her story not only to the News of the World but also to the Mail on Sunday which had the more direct headline of the two: "Faria: Sven was a master of love". (Mail on Sunday 8.8.2004). 

Max Clifford can rightly claim to be pre-eminent when it comes to using cheque book journalism to influence the news agenda.  His credits include a string of sensational stories which have captivated newspaper readers.  The names David Beckham and Rebecca Loos immediately spring to mind. Here was a blockbuster which Clifford helped engineer and which it was said netted Loos in excess of a million pounds in fees for newspaper stories and television appearances.   "Beckham's secret affair" (News of the World 4.4.2004) was the front page splash which heralded the start of a cascade of intimate disclosures which dominated the tabloid press for week after week.  "Becks, sex and me...by sleazy senorita Rebecca Loos" was the Sun's contribution (10.4.2004) to this steamy saga. 

Clifford sprang to fame in the late 1990s during final years of the last Conservative government.  "Sleaze" was the word which was slung around the neck of the outgoing Prime Minister John Major, a charge which the Labour Party exploited to the full with more than a little help from their friend Max.  "Tory MP two-timed wife with under-age gay lover" (News of the World 5.1.1997) was just one a long line of kiss-n-tell stories which did immense damage to the Conservatives. 

A decade later the Labour government became a casualty of Clifford's eye for an agenda setting story. "Prescott: The abuse of office" was the Mail on Sunday's follow up (30.4.2006) to the sensational disclosure that the Deputy Prime Minister had been having an affair with one his secretaries.  Clifford negotiated on her behalf and Tracey Temple's "devastating interview and excoriating diaries" revealed how Prescott exploited "his power for his own sexual gratification". 

When it comes to exploiting cheque-book journalism in order to command the news agenda the British tabloids have no equal.  Indeed the culture of paid for journalism has become so embedded within the British press that it rules the roost and collects the gongs when it come to  doling out the accolades.  This year's front page of the year at the British press awards was "Harry the Nazi" (13.1.2005), the Sun's front page picture of Prince Harry dressed as a Nazi soldier at a pal's birthday party.  It fell to another tabloid to expose the student who sold the picture to the Sun: "Harry's Traitor" (Sunday Mirror 6.2.2005).  Scoop of the year went to the Daily Mirror for "Cocaine Kate" (15.9.2005) for a series of photographs of the supermodel Kate Moss snorting "line after line". 

When it comes to the trade in salacious stories London is the market place that calls the shots.  Just as dealings in the City of London affect share prices around the world, so the popular press of Britain influences the daily reportage not just in the news media of this country but often for newspapers, magazines and television stations in countries far and wide.  The tabloids' take on the news of the day is all pervasive; the front pages are devoured each morning in newspaper reviews on television and radio; and it is the issues which they report which invariably tend frame the questions for talk shows and phone-ins.  Perhaps in a way most of us have become addicts, anxious to feed off the daily fare of an agenda setting industry that is becoming ever more inventive and ever more sensational.