Daniel Hannan: How EU Buys Journalists

Daniel Hannan talking about lack of press independence in the EU. European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg on June 13, 2013. Source: DanHannanMEP YouTube channnel.

(see video below transcript)

Transcript:

Daniel Hannan:

Thank you Mr. Deputy Speaker. Well, as Mr. Kelly just said, the press has to be independent as well as free. We are very good here at pointing the finger at others. We're not always so good at looking a little bit closer to home. European Parliament spends hundreds of thousands of euros every year on buying itself good press coverage, by bringing journalists particularly local reporters over to Brussels and Strasbourg and showing them a good time. Or indeed by compromising accredited correspondence in the EU by making them advisors on media issues or editors of EU-funded newsletters or websites.

We've created such an atmosphere of dependency and civility among some of the press corps here, that simply to have a normal functioning critical press horrifies people, as Mr. Brock is now in his usual bellicose and waifish way demonstrating by shouting at me. Simply to have a balanced press, as we have in the United Kingdom, where you have papers on both sides and media channels on both sides, some pro-EU others anti-EU, always produces the Brock kind of bellowing and eye-rolling, because people are so accustomed to lack of criticism. That is not healthy for anybody.

Translated by: Jadranko Brkić