Ava Evans and Adam Bienkov share their views at The World Transformed

THE cold truths of how political journalism operates – and favours those already in power – were unwrapped on Sunday evening, amid warnings that some reporters feared breaking key stories in case it lost them press pass access.

Speaking at the The World Transformed festival in Liverpool, two lobby pass holders at the Houses of Parliament discussed their own concerns about the relationships between politicians and the press.

The meeting, hosted at Toxteth TV studios by Novara Media, heard how the PoliticsJoe online channel has been refused a press pass for the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham next week and was stopped from reporting on leadership hustings over the summer after being considered too critical.

Adam Bienkov, from the Byline Times, which sets out to report stories not covered by the main newspapers, warned: “The way to get to the top in lobby journalism has been essentially to play into power and if you stray outside of that if you’re too critical, you get squeezed out and lose the access you need to do your job.”

He also questioned how close relations sometimes turned into lucrative job opportunities.

“There are people [political journalists] who sort of become converted and sort of see themselves as an outrider for the government themselves,” he said, adding: “Between the lobby and government, there is a massive revolving door.

“There are various prominent journalists who have gone from the Daily Mail to being a spokesperson for the prime minister – to going back to the Mail or back to The Sun and back and forth.

“A lot of that is down to the access culture that there is. A system that incentivises access also incentivises people to use that access for other means which could mean going on and working for the government – or it could be more often working for corporate lobbyists.

He added: “It’s not talked about much but it’s incredibly easy for journalists to be hired as corporate lobbyists.”

Ava Evans, a lobby pass reporter from PoliticsJoe told the meeting: “I do think that, naturally, the printed press is right leaning, so if you say anything that goes against the grain of that or you’re not typing up exactly the press release that they’ve given to you, then you would be seen as not playing the game correctly.”

She warned a lack of diversity among journalists might be due to how reporters break into it in the first place.

“The course at City University is essentially the access course, and you’ve got to pay £10k up front,” she said.

“That’s how you get into political journalism these days and who has got ten grand?”

The World Transformed is a left-wing festival that runs in the same city as the Labour Party conference each year across several venues.

Maurice Mcleod, a former political editor of The Voice, told the discussion: “The journalists who graduated when I did, a number of them have gone on to be very senior political journalists.

“I’ve gone to one of their engagement parties and there’s been two front-bench MPs around the table.

“I think that they’re close because that’s how the job works now. They have to be that close to get all the info, but – I don’t know – the border between their job and their mates is washed up and murky and I don’t think you can do the job properly if you’re that embedded.”