Nick Cohen and Media Solidarity

At long last the sexual harassment allegations against Nick Cohen are out in the open. And that the New York Times had to be relied upon to lift the lid everyone on politics social media has known for years says everything about the solidarity among the country's top hacks, reporters, and opinion column writers. Establishment feminists have decided they're more establishment than feminist and have ridden to Cohen's rescue, while (albeit more low key) prominent industry women have signalled likewise. Another case of class beating out gender, you might say.

There are fewer closed occupations than journalism at the top papers and broadcasters and the situation has only got worse these last 30 years. Oxford leans into this, proudly boasting that "Oxford's student newspapers and radio stations have long been the training ground for some of Britain’s most successful journalists and broadcasters." A position at Oxbridge will plug aspirant journalists into the networks and affinities that can be worked to get a position in one of the London newsrooms. The old local press and regional TV are shrinking, and the paths from cub reporter running stories on off-licence robberies to anchoring national news shows have largely vanished. Add to this the politics one needs to get on - a semi-coy centre rightish/centre leftish outlook to start off with - narrows the already attenuated point of entry even further. The result of common entries, common contacts, common experiences, and common outlooks is groupthink over what are and aren't the most important issues, what is the truth and what isn't, an entitled attitude and, with all of that, a strong sense of a common identity and consensus about what their professional interests are.

This manifests itself in two ways. A fierce defence of what they take to be the status quo of politics: moderate (sounding) Conservatism and Milquetoast Labourism, and an antipathy toward anything that upsets the settled character of two-party politics. This is partly because, in politics journalism, success and promotion depends on the relationships one cultivates among ministers, shadow ministers, rising stars, bitter-but-connected losers, and old soaks on the backbenches. Being too enthusiastic in holding politicians to account is not the done thing if one wants to play the game. And if the masses suddenly intrude, as they did with Corbynism, the media will treat it like an abomination. This experience not only showed how the political mythologies they had created were just that and that they knew nothing about what they were employed to understand, Corbynism directly threatened their jobs as mouthpieces for/influences on leading politicians. Small wonder that some within the coterie are for limiting mass participation in politics altogether. They have an interest in keeping it a game for elites.

The second are attempts at operating a closed shop by expelling/blocking "outsiders". In recent years, there have been renewed efforts at excluding new left wing voices from the mainstream. We saw this with campaigns against Novara Media people taking up slots on TV that belonged to acceptable journalists as of right. Owen Jones with his outpost at The Graun has been similarly targetted. The megaphone transphobia of supposedly liberal journalists, and the incessant antisemitism campaign waged by the same are efforts attempting to close the upper echelons of the media even further, as well as making clear the costs of refusing to toe their party lines are higher in terms of commissions lost, promotions missed out on, and CVs filed in the bin.

Cohen figures here because of services rendered. He happily attacked the left and filled an entire book with straw men to make his media buddies feel comfortable cheering on Iraq and other military adventures. His was useful in the centrist assault on Corbynism, thereby playing his own part in saddling us with the Tories for another five wasted years, and has weighed in on the trans bashing. Because nothing speaks truth to power like piling on a vulnerable, under-attack minority. As a key figure in centrist media culture, he is seen as too useful to be brought down by his wandering hands and indiscriminately-offered dick pics. And so the performative solidarity shown by the liberal and centrist press pack with the MeToo movement is, and will always be trumped by the affections and feelings of real solidarity with a sex pest - as long as they use their individual position and prominence to protect their collective position and prominence.

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