Do we really need journalists? We already have political parties. Newspapers in 1900 published political speeches in their entirety. Over the years political r

Do we really need journalists? We already have political parties. Newspapers in 1900 published political speeches in their entirety. Over the years political reporting has cut down on the politicians' own words and created an important role for journalist as meta-politician, an intermediary between citizen and politician. We read the newspaper to find out what Labour say, what the LibDems say, what the Conservatives say, and instead we get the journalists version. If it is just neutral reporting we could go instead to the parties websites and get their views directly. If the political news has been spun by the journalist we are more strongly motivated to go to the websites to get the news straight from the horses mouth. The journalist owes his position in the system due to the need to own and operate expensive printing presses in order to disseminate information. I've been making this point for a few years and at first it was a pretty stupid point. The websites of the political parties were crap. But my point makes sense, and on checking again today I find the websites are much improved.