Journalists Are Historians Of The Here And Now

One of the beauties of journalism, and of being a journalist, is the power it enables you to feel. Journalists are without doubt, historians of the moment. The written and spoken word provides a commentary and analysis of the modern world and its associated events and happenings which will be recorded for years to come and will be read by future generations.


The brilliant thing about history being documented in this way is that it can’t be changed – people can try and put a different spin on it, a different recollection maybe, or they can even tell you “that wasn’t how it occurred”. But there is something so definite about the written word as a document.  Who has ever tried to dispute The Book of Kells?

This point has particular resonance with the publication this week of Tony Blair’s memoir, The Journey. Many people, anti-Blairites mostly, will tell you that this book is his attempt to re-write history. They will tell you that in fact the world is not, and should not be seen to be as grateful to ‘Tony’ as he would have us believe, and not everything that has been achieved in this world post 1997 is down to him alone.  Even people in the Labour Party would try and tell you it was more about 'Tony' and less about 'The Party'.


However there is one point that I would like to make. This world that we now live in is, undoubtedly, a better and safer world now that Charles Taylor, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein are no longer in power. That is a fact, and that fact is part of the legacy of Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister.


Blair’s legacy can be Iraq if you wish it to be, but don’t lose sight of the one fact that The Tories would have you conveniently forget – they voted for Iraq just as much as Labour did. Had they been in power back then, things wouldn’t have been any different. So let them posture and pose with their ‘holier than thou’ attitude. But the truth of the matter is something that although forgotten, will be recorded for all of time for people to recall. Why? Because the vote for war was recorded in all its details by the journalists of the time.


Funny that, isn’t it?