Parliamentary reporting

Scholarship on the history of journalism and politics focuses on national contexts, but journalism and politics did not develop in international isolation. This chapter investigates this missing transnational dimension by studying parliamentary reporting. It argues that, across Western democracies over the last two centuries, the history of parliamentary reporting has been shaped by transnational ‘models, methods, and mediation.’ Parliaments and journalists observed parliamentary practices and media practices elsewhere as either positive or negative models . Methods of transferring practices of parliamentary reporting included inter-parliamentary meetings, advisory reports, and transnationally operating politicians and journalists. Mediation occurred in the form of media reporting on parliaments across borders, and the inherently transnational reporting on the European Parliament. Overall, in developing their relationship with journalism, parliaments experienced tension between their ideal of democratic transparency and fear of media-dominated politics – a tension that continues to define the relationship between media and politics in our new age of digital and social media.