Here's what today's newspapers had to say about Tony Blair's 'feral media' speech:
The Guardian Leader: Right sermon, wrong preacher
"Mr Blair ended by trailing hints aobut a changing regulatory framework which might encompass all media as technologies increasingly blur distinctions between print, online and broadcasters. It is a reasonable issue to raise but we hope nothing will ever come of any attempts to place the press under any kind of statutory regulation. The British press is all the things Mr Blair says it is. But it must remain free to be both awful and, on its day, magnificent."
Peter Wilby: Blair still doesn't get it
"If Tony Blair needs a new career, he could possibly cut it as a media columnist... he survived a decade in office and, until the end, hardly suffered from, for example, taking the country to war on a patently false prospectus and entering dubious relationships with wealthy business people. The relationship between public life and the media might, as he says, 'be damaged in a manner that requires repair'. But the media didn't do him so badly, did they?"
The Independent Front page comment by editor Simon Kelner: Would you be saying this, Mr Blair, if we supported your war in Iraq?
"Most days The Independent speaks for itself. We like to think that we do our little bit to make sense of an often bewildering world. But today is different: our editorial approach, and the values that underpin it, have come under attack from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
"...What clearly rankles with Mr Blair is not that we campaign vociferously on certain issues, but that he doesn't agree with our stance. What if we had backed the invasion of Iraq (like, for example, we supported the interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone)? Would he then be attacking our style of journalism? Of course not. We are unapologetic about our opposition to Iraq, the biggest foreign policy folly of our age, and we shall continue to hold him and his government to account.
"...Of course, news is still the backbone of our offering, but we feel our readers today want more: a diverse range of commentary, colourful debate, provocative front pages and, yes, the views behind the news. It is difficult to imagine what kind of newspaper Mr Blair envisages in his platonic heaven, but it's probably safe to say that this isn't it."
The Daily Telegraph Leader: Blair's last enemy: Freedom of speech
"To seek to bring the press under statutory regulation could only, despite Mr Blair's protestations to the contrary, impair freedom of speech and the liberties of the subject.
"...He forecast his speech would be rubbished. We do not do that: but, given his record on liberties of the subject, we do find his argument deeply disturbing, founded on false premises and worthy of the strongest refutation."
The Times Leader: The medium is the message
"Mr Blair is on his strongest ground when asserting that news and views are too regularly cross-fertilised. Objectivity should always be the ambition of news even if the meaning of objectivity is inevitably subjective. The tendency of some so-called serious newspapers to act as viewspapers would have profoundly negative effects if universally followed. Journalists are right to hold politicians and companies to account, but journalists should not be afraid of being held to account themselves. Readers are intelligent and thoughtful, and hardly able to be fooled by an individual article or an individual politician, but if the traditional media exist as a separate, self-serving universe, then the distance from readers will grow and the size of the audience will shrink."
Financial Times Leader: Blair's take on a decade of spin
"The media has many faults. But responsibility for spin, cronyism, sofa government and the fatal misjudgment over Iraq lies with Mr Blair and his government. Insisting he is misunderstood and only ever sought to "do the right thing" wilfully misunderstands that most criticism of him is about policy not morality, judgment not sincerity."
Daily Mail Stephen Glover: Magnificent self-delusion of Mr Blair
"For years Mr Blair received consistently sympathetic treatment from the BBC, and in the Left-wing Press. If I were to list even a few examples of BBC favouritism, it would take up the rest of this article.
"At the same time Mr Blair had sweetened the Murdoch Press, which accounts for about 35 per cent of newspaper circulation in this country. In others words, he had squared both the Left-wing and the Right-wing media.
"...Far from being an out-of-control 'feral beast', for the most part the media acted like a great sloppy Labrador which repeatedly bestowed its affections on Mr Blair despite occasional proddings from his then director of communications, Alastair Campbell, who liked to pretend that the BBC had a mind of its own."
The Sun Leader: Vital freedom
"His sights were on the Daily Mail and the BBC - but the only newspaper he named was the tiny, defenceless Independent.
"...We can dish it out and we can take it. But what worries us about the PM's speech was his threat to shackle the media. It should worry everyone who believes true democracy cannot exist without a free press."
Daily Mirror Leader: Spun out of control
"By favouring organisations that were unquestioningly positive to the government agenda, whether the news was bad or just plain wrong, Mr Blair and his army of spin doctors severely warped relations between media and politics.
"... If politicians really believe the media fails to accurately reflect the facts as they see them, shouldn't they start the house-cleaning by promising to tell the truth."
Daily Express Leader: Why Blair's legacy merits all of our 'feral' criticism
"In the animal kingdom, the opposite of feral is tame. Presumably that is the sort of press Mr Blair would prefer. It is the only sort which would refrain from telling him what a poor prime minister he has been."
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