An insight, courtesy of the lovely people at pro-aviation lobby group Flying Matters, into a vital outsourced arm of the modern news factory:

“Michelle di Leo denied the suggestion Flying Matters had offered funding. “We did not offer the All Party Parliamentary Aviation Group money. We offered to help them with their secretarial work, not set their agenda. Our role is to get attention for issues. Yes we generated headlines. That's what PR people do. They place stories.

“The Flying Matters papers claim that the group’s lobbying of politicians, civil servants and the media persuaded MPs and ministers to adopt the industry line on airport expansion, despite environmental concerns. It adds: “A combination of media coverage and private briefings by Flying matters helped ensure the Conservatives backed away from Quality of Life recommendations on a [green] air tax. And The DfT [and] the secretary of state [are] adopting Flying Matters lines in public comment.” ...

“The group also claims that it has “generated” sympathetic headlines about the need to expand airports and avoid green taxes in the Sun, the Sunday Times, and the Evening Standard. It also claims to have placed stories in the Times and Independent. “FM-led stories [have been] placed and hundreds of FM comments and mentions [have been made] in articles”, says the document.”

If generating headlines and placing stories is what PR people do these days, what, we may be moved to wonder, do journalists actually do? Edit and arrange PR people’s copy? Actually, more often than not the answer is yes.

Do read the Guardian’s report on this in full, incidentally - it attests to a shocking level of endemic corruption in our political system and media (if more evidence of this phenomenon were needed). Delightfully, some kindly soul has also dropped a copy of Flying Matters’ report into Greenpeace’s inbox - it’s now available here. Have a gander.

UPDATE: Now this – from Elliott Morley, “a minister in the environment department Defra from 2003 to 2006” – is rather interesting an’ all ...

“Britain’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have been hampered by government infighting and a reluctance to stand up to industry, according to the UK’s former climate change minister.

“... Policies to cut carbon and help the environment were dismissed inside Whitehall as “idealistic and not giving enough attention to the pragmatic needs of industry”, he said.

“... Crucial changes to building standards to make homes more energy efficient were delayed because of industry lobbying, he said.

““It came down to this argument about the costs to industry, which is what the energy people thought was their priority,” Morley said. “Defra would sometimes be presented as a department that was too idealistic and not giving enough attention to the pragmatic needs of industry.”

“... “Why on earth are we still building hospitals without combined heat and power? The answer is the tendering process and the private finance initiative.””

As ever, business as good as runs the country – and runs the rest of us into the ground.