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New Labour favoured certain reporters, including ones who worked for Rupert Murdoch's papers, BBC journalist Andrew Marr has told the Leveson Inquiry.
His BBC colleague Jeremy Paxman later said he had no politicians who were friends, echoing earlier comments from Mr Marr.
And former Heritage Secretary Stephen Dorrell said he explored ways of "doing nothing" about proposed privacy laws.
Ex-Labour minister Lord Reid will speak to the inquiry into press ethics later.
The inquiry into press standards is looking into the relationship between politicians and the media.
Mr Paxman said politicians were not all "scoundrels" and he occasionally took politicians to dinner but he found it better to keep a distance from them and regarded none as friends.
Mr Marr also said there were no politicians he still regarded as friends but added: "I am friendly with politicians, and many I like and admire. Contacts with politicians is part of my professional life and was never easy."
Mr Marr said he believed the Labour government thought having a positive relationship with News International titles as well as newspapers such as the Mirror and the Guardian was "well worth doing".
Asked if New Labour favoured some journalists because they worked for News International, Mr Marr - who before joining the BBC worked for non-Murdoch newspapers - replied: "yes, absolutely".
But he said reporters from some papers, such as the Daily Telegraph, found themselves "out in the wilderness".
He added there was clearly "a lot of work" going on to ensure good links between a pro-Europe prime minister and the Sun, a Eurosceptic newspaper.
Mr Marr said journalists' relationships with politicians were important and said without individual contacts, and a little "wining and dining", the public would not have known about the difficulties within the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
It "came out because politicians were talking privately with journalists", he said.
He also said the rise of internet news had meant people did not buy newspapers to simply find out what had happened and papers had adapted and now looked to get readers "emotionally engaged in the news".
And he said any regulatory system built upon the old ways of working would fail, because of the rise of "a new player into the system" - influential political bloggers.
He was asked about the differences between working for newspapers and for the BBC, which is answerable to statutory broadcasting regulators rather than the Independent Press Complaints Commission.
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Mr Marr said he was barely aware of Ofcom because the BBC's own editorial code was so stringent and carefully monitored and anything he did was being watched for impartiality.
He said he had found some BBC rules, such as needing more than one source for a story, difficult at first as before joining the corporation if he had a single good source - such as the home secretary speaking off the record - he considered that enough to write a story.
Asking Gordon Brown whether he took painkillers to "get through" was not a moment of his career he looked back on with enthusiasm or pride, he told the inquiry.
He said this was not because the question was inappropriate but because it had overshadowed other news lines that came out of the interview.
Earlier the inquiry heard from Conservative MP Stephen Dorrell, who was national heritage secretary in the mid-90s under John Major, with responsibility for media policy.
Mr Dorrell told the inquiry the government at the time preferred to avoid statutory regulation of the press and said he was "personally hostile for any proposal for official regulation of freedom of expression".
He said when privacy laws were suggested, the government explored ways of "doing nothing" about it and he was asked to "dress up a do nothing option".
And he said was not in favour of having government policy determined by press coverage but also not in favour of having policy set out "blind to press coverage".
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