This is ostensibly aimed at non-UK readers, but it definitely has some perspectives interesting from a UK point of view. Noteworthy for this section, not *explicitly* using the term “access journalism”, if nothing else:
> **Parliamentary Journalists ARE Pretending They Have Saved the Day**
> For your ‘beltway insiders’, allow us to raise you the ‘lobby hacks’ – the reporters tracking the politics beat from their offices inside the Palace of Westminster. With a few exceptions, they are largely selected for their connections to the government. Harry Cole, of the Sun, is the ex-boyfriend of Carrie Johnson, the Prime Minister’s wife. Alex Wickham, formerly of Politico and now at Bloomberg, is godfather to Boris Johnson’s son. And there are rumours that another young lobby hack is being selected as a Conservative candidate in the next General Election.
> They each have a private portfolio of information on MPs which they use as a form of horse-trading, trading ‘scoops’ which are common knowledge in Westminster (and beyond). Such was the case with Christopher Pincher, the appropriately named Member for Tamworth who now faces a raft of allegations of sexual assualt. The journalists involved in breaking the story are already being lauded as ‘bringing down the government’ and are being hailed as the ‘best of the best.’ But the irony is that political journalists have, for some time now, not only buttressed the government from due levels of scrutiny, but actually compounded their power and influence.
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This is ostensibly aimed at non-UK readers, but it definitely has some perspectives interesting from a UK point of view. Noteworthy for this section, not *explicitly* using the term “access journalism”, if nothing else:
> **Parliamentary Journalists ARE Pretending They Have Saved the Day**
> For your ‘beltway insiders’, allow us to raise you the ‘lobby hacks’ – the reporters tracking the politics beat from their offices inside the Palace of Westminster. With a few exceptions, they are largely selected for their connections to the government. Harry Cole, of the Sun, is the ex-boyfriend of Carrie Johnson, the Prime Minister’s wife. Alex Wickham, formerly of Politico and now at Bloomberg, is godfather to Boris Johnson’s son. And there are rumours that another young lobby hack is being selected as a Conservative candidate in the next General Election.
> They each have a private portfolio of information on MPs which they use as a form of horse-trading, trading ‘scoops’ which are common knowledge in Westminster (and beyond). Such was the case with Christopher Pincher, the appropriately named Member for Tamworth who now faces a raft of allegations of sexual assualt. The journalists involved in breaking the story are already being lauded as ‘bringing down the government’ and are being hailed as the ‘best of the best.’ But the irony is that political journalists have, for some time now, not only buttressed the government from due levels of scrutiny, but actually compounded their power and influence.
A final claim there which would benefit considerably from some supporting information. “Godfather” Alex Wickham, reportedly [a close friend](https://twitter.com/brokenbottleboy/status/1486599978520821761) of Carrie’s, is an interesting case. I wonder [what horses were being traded here?](https://thelondonpress.uk/2021/12/10/crime-week-reviewed-geidt-gate-plan-c-politico/)
For the rest, it’s an amusingly frank dissection of some of the nonsense that passes for received wisdom on UK politics, IMO.