Government changes to the twice-daily briefings are straight out of a dangerous US playbook
Lobby is not the best word to associate with journalism. As a noun it’s a room which is inside and yet not; as a verb it stands for trying to influence politicians. Yet the “lobby system” in parliamentary reporting, a relic of the 19th century, is now at the centre of a very 21st century fight for press freedom.
The government’s move to change the location of the traditional twice-daily briefing system, from the Commons to 9 Downing Street, is hardly the most egregious insult lobbed at journalists from a government that has already banned newspapers from its campaign bus, spurned a flagship
BBC news programme and threatened to review Channel 4’s remit because it refused to do its bidding.