How to trap a journalist

Shortly before his death, the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that capitalism crushed the integrity of artists and intellectuals. Assessed only in terms of their commercial appeal, they became ‘a sub-department of marketing’. In a touching display of filial loyalty, Julia Hobsbawm seems to be proving her old dad right.

The former head of New Labour’s favourite PR agency, Hobsbawm Macaulay, now runs an outfit called Editorial Intelligence, ‘a tool for… bringing together key journalists and PR professionals through networking clubs’. Journalists once had a vague notion that their job was to tell the truth whatever the cost, while PRs believed they must protect their institution whatever the cost. There was a natural antipathy between them, which Hobsbawm has sought to break down under the guise of ‘networking’. For a mere £1,500 a year (£3,000 for corporate membership), marketing managers, PR execs, brand promoters, lobbyists, and people who can never explain what they do but insist on doing it anyway, can ‘create and build your personal and professional network… not with algorithms but with real people, face-to-face, and real human intelligence’.