Maybe we need to set up a league table of Andy Burnham's big announcements in the last fortnight? (He's the new UK Prime Minister). My suggestion is the highest spot in the table should go the announcement that has managed to go the longest number of weeks without providing any info on how the announcement will actually be delivered.
In the UK this morning, in the latest of these big announcements with no details, we had what was billed as, (by the spin doctors?), "the biggest transfer of power from Westminster in a generation"
Apparently, later today, the Prime Minister will outline plans that he says will give communities greater control over the decisions that shape jobs, transport, housing and public services in their area, by distributing more taxes to local areas.
So it is thought that Mayor's will get a share of income tax in 2028 and a share of business rates in 2027.
The UK news media reports say the detail is still to come, so we simply don't know how issues like areas that don't have Mayors will be dealt with fairly.
Inevitably the spokespeople when asked this inconvenient detail basically said something along the lines of "It will all be all right" (and maybe under their breath muttered - "Don't worry your pretty little head about that detail - just keep on reporting our daily big announcements which promise detail in the future")
This approach n the UK newscycle appears to be following Trump's approach to managing the 24/7 news cycle. Which is -
a) flood the news with daily/hourly social media posts, Government announcements and staged for TV events.
b) so the newscycle follows the topics you want the media to be talking about.
c) don't bother with news which has any "how will this actually be implemented" detail below the eye-catching headline. (That just makes it harder to always be announcing things!)
The news media industry can't help itself in sucumbing to Trump's approach for the simple reasons that
a) Its the news dummy!
b) Few go beyond cursory that day investigation of the info being pumped out.
c) Thet're unable to say "We'll report more on that when there's an actual thought out plan", and even if they do they largely don't.
Report card comment on UK news media performance -
"News media UK appears uninterested in following up later on the detail behing the big news splash items from a couple of weeks or months ago. Maybe they should switch subjects to creative writing or drama?"
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