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It is frequently observed that political communication processes related to elections, political parties and the electorally accountable domains of executive authority have entered a period of great conflict. This article widens this debate, by examining journalists' relations with "quasi-government" bodies--i.e. the myriad of arm's-length public bodies (often referred to as "quangos"), that are appointed to office and that have colonised many official advisory, regulatory and executive functions. Presenting findings from semi-structured interviews with 40 UK-based specialist national and regional journalists, the article demonstrates how even these experienced journalists struggle to cope with the complex and evolving structure of quasi-government in the UK, and how their attitudes are often highly inconsistent. Although most are hostile towards the broad principle of appointive-government, their relations with specific public bodies that fall within this rubric are in the main highly co-operative, and these sources are often deemed authoritative and dispassionate arbiters in the public policy arena. The article concludes by discussing the political implications of the appreciably less conflictive relations evident in the reporting of appointive government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between media and the British government. According to the author, governmental systems differ in the explicitness of their management of information, and Fascist and Communist systems in the twentieth century saw information as a legitimate tool to control the masses and governments in military and other one-party systems seem also to accept it. He stressed that in the country, as seen by foreign journalists and observers, there appears to be a large gap between what is publicly known, and what is unofficially and unattributably understood.