First as Leader of the Opposition (1994–7) and then as Prime Minister (1997–2007), Blair was careful to pay considerable attention to the task of managing the media. This involved Blair and his advisers – most notably Alastair Campbell, his press secretary between 1994 and 2003 – in the pursuit of different but complementary communication objectives: first, setting the news agenda by promoting some stories and downplaying others; second, ensuring that issues were framed in as positive a fashion as possible; and, finally, projecting an upbeat image of New Labour in general and Blair's leadership in particular. This obsession with media management was understandable. The UK political communications environment of the Blair era was characterised by the twenty-four-hour news cycle, an explosion of media outlets, notably rolling news channels and internet websites, a phalanx of journalists hungry for insider information and a broad range of political actors, including parties and pressure groups, functioning in competition with the core executive as sources for the media. In the promotional culture of a ‘public relations democracy’, managing the media was a necessity – not an option – for Blair and New Labour.

For several years, Blair's media management activities met with considerable success. However, towards the middle of his first term as Prime Minister, journalists' stories critical of the government's attempts to control the news agenda began to replace comments which in the main had previously been full of praise for the professionalism of New Labour's media machine.

The major focus of media management during Blair's second term was on the war in Iraq. During the prolonged run-up to the outbreak of hostilities in spring 2003 the government used the news media to put across its case, albeit with mixed success in terms of influencing public opinion regarding the legitimacy of military action in the absence of a second United Nations resolution. During the pre-war phase, the war itself and the weeks immediately following the downfall of the Saddam Hussein regime, Downing Street pursued a bitter campaign against the BBC regarding the Corporation's alleged anti-government bias on the issue of Iraq. The breakdown in the relationship between Number 10 and the Corporation finally came to a head over allegations made in late May on the Radio Four Today programme by its defence and diplomatic correspondent, Andrew Gilligan, that the government had knowingly misinformed the public in presenting the case for war. This broadcast, which indirectly led a few weeks later to the suicide of the government scientist and former weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly, was at the heart of the inquiry led by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding Kelly's death. The Hutton Report, published at the start of 2004, exculpated the government from responsibility and instead directed its fire at the BBC. Its publication was swiftly followed by the resignation of the chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Gavyn Davies, the Director General, Greg Dyke, and Gilligan himself.