Say what you like about social media, it tells you what people think. When Michael Crick invited journalists to remember occasions on which Peter Mandelson had tried to get them sacked, X – formerly Twitter – buzzed with memories of his attempts to unseat the uncooperative. Happily, editors emerged as heroes for ignoring his demands, their reporters as dedicated seekers after truth.

Except many readers did not see it that way, wondering why journalists revealed the politician’s malign attempts to dictate media coverage only now he could not rise again. Why hadn’t they exposed this interference earlier? Why had they continued to use him as a source? Why were they beholden to him? One onlooker offered an explanation: “Mandelson was such good copy and such a brilliant communicator, he was almost too valuable for a lot of journalists to want to harm him.” Another diagnosed a deeper sickness: “A major part of why people fail to trust the mainstream media. People worry the stories are manipulated and client journalists run in fear.”

So, turning to the man who appointed Lord Mandelson as US ambassador, was Sir Keir Starmer about to be toppled on February 9? Or was his imminent demise journalistic fantasy? Did political correspondents simply report what was going on? Or did they confect a drama that they almost made come true?

Naturally, once it transpired that nothing was going to happen to the prime minister – at least, not for the time being – Labour supporters were quick to suggest the whole thing had been got up by a hostile press. Alastair Campbell, whose days as Tony Blair’s spokesman loom large in media memory, identified the issue: “One of the big problems with our politics is that we have a media, including and even especially in Westminster, that treats politics largely as a soap opera.”

Ah yes, the complaint that has been made all our lifetimes, that journalists spend too long discussing personalities and too little reporting policies. That they should get out of town and bring back news of government initiatives improving people’s lives (an approach much admired in North Korea). That these stories are a preoccupation of the “Westminster bubble” and of no interest to the population beyond.

We don’t doubt that millions of Britons did indeed get through February without being disturbed by news of the government’s difficulties, though in talking of bubbles we should remember that the same bubble created a froth that swept away three Conservative prime ministers in less than four years. The idea that there was nothing to see was also at odds with the words of the climate secretary Ed Miliband when he told broadcasters next day how Labour MPs “looked over the precipice and didn’t like what they saw”.

But if the prosecution is largely conducted by moaning politicians, journalists do have a case to answer. Westminster runs on gossip – who’s up, who’s down – and is full of ambitious people. Politicians use journalists, journalists use politicians. What a terrifying mix of excitable reporters, political advisers, MPs and ministers.

We would let them get on with it, except that they play by informal rules that are unhelpful to objective journalism, particularly the principle that extends beyond the parliamentary lobby, that politicians – and, worse, their special advisers – will be quoted anonymously. It allows “sources” to make the most outrageous claims with impunity. Stories are informed by “ministers”, “cabinet ministers”, people “close to the prime minister”, and things that are “reported” or “understood” to have happened. Something is moving, but it becomes impossible to tell how fast. It becomes nonsensical when stories erupt over briefings by “rival camps”, when journalists know very well who made which call to whom but can’t say so. They should ask themselves in whose interest comments are being made before rushing to report them. Or, as Louis Heren, a long-ago deputy editor of The Times, is said to have remarked: “When a politician tells you something in confidence, always ask yourself: Why is this lying bastard lying to me?”

It’s too late, now that we are being conditioned to believe the prime minister will be out in May, or autumn, or certainly by the end of the year, to expect any change in the reporting. And perhaps many of us have become as addicted to the helter-skelter adrenaline as the reporters who supply it. Besides, one day when they tell us it’s looking like Sir Keir could be gone as “early as today”, they will be right.
KF