Evans once memorably said a journalist interviewing a politician should always ask: 'Why is this bastard lying to me?'

Lloyd, who is writing a book on journalism, truth and spin, says journalists bring the agenda of their employers to their work, and 'ruthlessly tailor the facts into narrative which we know suits the agenda of those who employ us'.

That really is the foundation for Hobsbawm's claim that journalists are no 'further up the food chain of truth' than PRs. It is at the root of the Bush administration's conviction that the press is just another special-interest group, not a champion of the public interest.