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Parliamentary Affairs Advance Access originally published online on September 18, 2007
Parliamentary Affairs 2007 60(4):700-708; doi:10.1093/pa/gsm042
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© The Author [2007]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Lights, Camera, Inaction? The Media Reporting of Parliament

Virginia Gibbons

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

What has changed is the way Parliament is reported or rather not reported. Tell me how many maiden speeches are listened to; how many excellent second reading speeches or committee speeches are covered? Except when they generate major controversy, they aren't.

Tony Blair1

THE Puttnam Commission report, Members Only? Parliament in the Public Eye, published by the Hansard Society in May 2005, examined how parliamentary democracy is communicated to the public.2 Its starting point was the belief that in a democracy, people have a right to understand what Parliament does and why it does it. Evidence suggests that we are a long way from Puttnam's ideal: 61% of the public say that they know ‘not very much’ or ‘nothing at all’ about the role of the Westminster Parliament.3 Westminster, the world of representative politics and Parliament, remain a closed book to many. One result, it seems, is a lack . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Signs of change?
 

   A relationship in need of repair?
 

   The media marketplace
 

   Public Service Broadcasting
 

   The future of parliamentary reporting
 

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