Bite Size Comms

In July 1985, Margaret Thatcher stood before the American Bar Association in London and delivered a phrase that would become one of the most enduring concepts in communications: “We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.” Her target was media coverage of terrorism. But the insight she articulated, that publicity is sustenance for those who seek attention, has shaped how activists, politicians, and communicators have operated ever since. And right now, that insight is undergoing a profound transformation.

The phrase emerged in the wake of the June 1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacking by Hezbollah militants, which received saturation live television coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN. Thatcher’s argument was not a call for censorship. She was explicit that democratic societies do not constrain the media. But it was a challenge to news organisations to consider a voluntary code of conduct that would deny terrorists the amplification they craved. The phrase stuck, and over the following decades it migrated beyond terrorism into the everyday playbook of anyone seeking, or seeking to deny, public attention.

Few organisations have exploited the oxygen of publicity more systematically than Greenpeace. Before I checked the facts, I thought Thatcher had used the phrase when talking about Greenpeace! Since its founding voyage in 1971, when activists sailed an old fishing boat towards US nuclear tests near Alaska, its model has been simple: create a visual spectacle that is impossible for journalists to ignore. The principle is articulated by its own team: “You can send a press release, and it’s maybe not something media outlets will pursue as a story. But when six million people have seen it, they’ll cover it.” A viral Lego/Shell oil spill video in 2014 racked up over six million views in its first week, generating mainstream media coverage that would have been unaffordable to buy.

For PR practitioners, the lessons are clear. Direct action creates big noise on small budgets, and powerful visual imagery, such as a small inflatable against a giant whaling ship, can simplify complex issues and give journalists a ready-made hook. The stunt is the press release.

Politicians have long understood that an image outperforms a speech at a lectern. But the 2024 UK general election saw the Liberal Democrats, under Sir Ed Davey, elevate the political stunt to an art form and a strategic necessity. As a third-party leader competing for attention in a race dominated by Labour and the Conservatives, Davey calculated that conventional campaigning was not a viable route to coverage. His answer: tumble off a paddleboard in sewage-filled Lake Windermere; hurtle down a waterslide; scream at the top of a rollercoaster at Thorpe Park. “If you do it the traditional way, you make a speech at a lectern, you might get a tiny bit of coverage,” he explained. “I think that by taking a slightly different approach, with a bit of humour, a bit of emotion, you can get people’s attention.”

The Lib Dems gained 72 seats. The oxygen of publicity, on their terms, had served its purpose.

For decades, UK tabloids claimed they were the oxygen supply itself. After the Conservatives’ surprise 1992 election victory, The Sun ran one of the most notorious headlines in British press history: “It’s the Sun Wot Won It”. The paper relentlessly targeted Labour leader Neil Kinnock, culminating in an election-day front page featuring his head inside a lightbulb. Even senior Conservatives, including Margaret Thatcher and Alistair McAlpine, acknowledged the paper’s contribution.

But research has consistently challenged this narrative. A landmark study of the 1992 election found that voting shifts among Sun readers were “much the same as among the rest of the electorate,” suggesting that readers chose papers that matched their existing views rather than being led by them.

Meanwhile, circulation figures tell a story of irreversible decline. The Sun sold nearly 4.8 million copies on its record day in March 1996. By early 2025, that figure had collapsed to an estimated 550,000–630,000. Overall UK newspaper sales fell by 24.8% between 2020 and 2025. The UK is now the least trusted media environment among 28 nations surveyed by Edelman, with just 31% of people saying they trust the media. If tabloid power was once the oxygen of British public opinion, the supply line is visibly thinning.

If the decline of tabloid influence is a British concern, consider what happens when the media supply is not merely weakened but deliberately weaponised. Hungary under Viktor Orbán provided the starkest case study in media control, treating political oxygen as a resource.

Over 16 years, Orbán’s government built a sprawling pro-government media empire that dominated political discourse. State TV devoted 95% of its airtime to positive coverage of Viktor Orbán, while 96% of its coverage of challenger Péter Magyar was negative. Magyar was banned from appearing on the state broadcaster for 18 months. He was, in Thatcher’s terms, being starved of the oxygen of publicity.

Yet in April 2026, Magyar’s Tisza party won a landslide victory and a two-thirds supermajority in parliament, ending Orbán’s 16-year rule. How? Magyar bypassed state media entirely, conducting an intensive grassroots campaign of direct voter contact. Sometimes he held six campaign events a day in town halls, made community visits, and engaged face-to-face in rural Hungary on issues people could feel in their own lives, such as the cost of living, poor public services, corruption, and a pro-Russia government. Where the media gate was closed, he walked around it, person-to-person.

The lesson for PR practitioners is both humbling and energising. The oxygen of publicity is not the exclusive preserve of newspapers, broadcasters, or viral stunts. Ultimately, the most powerful communications may be the most intimate: one person telling another, in their own words, why something matters.

Thatcher was right that attention is oxygen. But she could not have anticipated a world in which state-controlled media could be outpaced by a politician walking into small towns and listening. In an era of declining trust in the media, authentic, human, person-to-person communication may be the most powerful form of publicity.

Three personal thoughts in closing. 

First, I have always been a strong believer in the power of ordinary people. Listen to my podcast ‘On the Baltic Way’ for an excellent case study. I am also grateful to Paula Antalffy for writing a powerful personal post on LinkedIn about witnessing the Hungarian elections, which inspired this article.

Second, I read a post on LinkedIn earlier this week that I will need to paraphrase, as I will never find it again! It basically said that what British people want is a boring but competent government, not one crafting sound bites and prioritising the media over straight talking with people. Totally agree with that!

Third, I rarely quote Margaret Thatcher. I met her a few times when I was a very young FCO employee working on the Falklands War. In case my friends think I have gone a bit senile with age, no, I still would never vote for her or her party!

[Image of Senator Dole presenting Prime Minister Thatcher with a gift in 1985, surrounded by media. By Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics – Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archive and Special Collections, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons]