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On Tuesday 2 December 1997, at around 9.30 a.m., Jonathan Boyd Hunt telephoned the Press Association and spoke to staff reporter Katherine Road, with whom Hunt had spoken at length outside the Hamiltons' Battersea flat five months earlier following the release of Sir Gordon Downey's critical report.  Hunt informed her that he intended to release onto the Internet a report compiled by himself and Malcolm Keith-Hill.  Road said she remembered the conversation and she expressed a keenness to write up a news release about it.  However, her interest evaporated when Hunt explained that he & Keith-Hill had uncovered evidence of a conspiracy within The Guardian to pervert the course of justice of Sir Gordon Downey's inquiry:

    "We wouldn't be interested in a story like that," she said.  "We're part-owned by The Guardian."
    Hunt protested: "But this is a major story of national interest.  Couldn't you at least do a basic bulletin stating that our investigation questions The Guardian's evidence and Downey's conclusions?"
    "I'll speak to my editor," she said.  "If we're interested we'll give you a call."
    Neither Road or her editor called Hunt back.  A year later the PA refused to disseminate news about the release of Hunt's book, Trial by Conspiracy, for the same reason.

Despite the sensational nature of The Guardian's original 'cash for questions' story of 20 October 1994, not one national news journalist questioned Neil Hamilton about the allegations against him in detail (i.e. discounting journalists who only sought and obtained denials).
    Instead, Britain's news organisations obtained their information from three sources: The Guardian; Fayed's spokesman Michael Cole; but mainly Britain's leading news agency, the Press Association (PA), which obtained its information from The Guardian and Cole.

    Today, in Britain, newspapers and broadcast news organisations alike turn to the PA as the principal source of information about domestic news stories. Indeed, following a drive for efficiency throughout Britain's news industry since the 1980s, in which thousands of news journalists lost their jobs, the PA has been elevated to becoming often the only source of news about national stories, upon which Britain's news organisations rely absolutely.
    As a consequence of this dependency, once the PA has disseminated (or suppressed) a story, Britain's news organisations, including the BBC, simply follow its line, ensuring that the PA's valuation of a story's newsworthiness gains acceptance across the land.  However, the PA is not impartial, contrary to its claims.  For one thing, the PA is owned jointly by a small number of major British newspapers (including The Guardian) and its board is made up of their representatives.

The Press Association, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, upon whose news bulletins the British news industry relies.
    Despite its claim to be impartial, the PA obtained its information about the 'Hamilton Affair' largely from the Guardian.

Accordingly, any empathy between newspapers at executive level is certainly enhanced.  More significantly, like much of Britain's news industry, including the BBC especially, the PA is staffed by idealistic left-inclined journalists for whom The Guardian is an intellectual, liberal icon that can do no wrong. 
    These factors provide the most likely explanation as to why the PA disseminated news bulletins about the 'cash for questions' affair that followed The Guardian's line slavishly, whilst suppressing news undermining The Guardian's story -- such as Hunt & Keith-Hill's investigation.
    This bias and censorship of news at source should concern all right-thinking democrats, for in Britain the Press Association is truly omnipotent.  Indeed, on its own website, PA News boasts:

      'Fast, accurate and impartial news and information: As the only media organisation to maintain a constant presence at Westminster while the Houses are sitting, and with offices within the Irish Assembly, Scottish Parliament, Welsh National Assembly and at the European Union in Brussels, PA is ideally placed to report on the political landscape of the UK... 
      As the national news agency of the UK and Ireland, the PA is at the heart of the media industry, delivering a continuous stream of stories.. into the newsrooms of leading newspapers, broadcasters and electronic publishers.  We set the news agenda, minute by minute…'

This is a worrying state of affairs for anyone who values the integrity of news, for in today's super-efficient, wire-driven news industry, PA News does indeed steer the British media's course, exactly as it claims. 
    And today, in sound-bite British politics, the media's agenda is Parliament's agenda.  Ergo, what the anonymous, unaccountable, 'staff reporters' at PA headquarters in Vauxhall Bridge Road decide to put out 'on the wires' effects the British democratic process directly.  And the signs indicate that it is getting worse, year on year.

Houses of Parliament, London. Its agenda is now largely dictated by the British media, while the British media's agenda is set by the anonymous, unaccountable Press Association.

PA's historical and current links to The Guardian