The end of impartiality rules for broadcasters?

<a href="https://twitter.com/leedsjourno">leedsjourno</a> That might be a good thing for ratings, but wouldn't it be a terrible thing for democracy?</p>&mdash; Geoff Lloyd (GeoffLloyd) March 31, 2013

We’ve already seen what happens when the impartiality requirement is not enforced. You get Fox News and Sun News, spreading lies and propaganda, not reporting the truth, not reporting the facts, only speaking to their ‘constituency’ of nutjobs.

It’s not a holy grail, it’s an unholy mess, and it leads the media into an area that is more trouble than it’s worth. It also leads to growing distrust in the media, because then nobody is sure who’s telling the truth. And for the media’s key role of keeping the powerful in check, lack of impartiality is like kryptonite.

We’ve already seen what happens when the impartiality requirement is not enforced. You get Fox News and Sun News, spreading lies and propaganda, not reporting the truth, not reporting the facts, only speaking to their ‘constituency’ of nutjobs.

And for the media’s key role of keeping the powerful in check, lack of impartiality is like kryptonite.

So newspapers (which are not bound by impartiality rules) aren’t capable of performing that role then?

Better tell the Telegraph that nobody took any interest in the MPs expenses scandal.

Here’s the thing. Right now, what you see isn’t “fair and balanced”, to coin a phrase.

Most of my news either comes via the BBC, or via Sky News (who supply commercial radio). These two organisations are in charge of my entire news agenda (I don’t watch ITN or Channel 4). If they don’t believe that something’s interesting, they don’t report it.

I remember being in a meeting at the BBC where the then Deputy Director General, Mark Byford, said what the next six month’s news agenda was going to focus on. “We believe this story is important”, he said, “and this one. We’ll be focusing on them.” And so, they do. The BBC report excellently, and impartially, but they report only on the stories that Someone Has Decided they should focus on. And the same goes for Sky.

Witness the BBC’s fascination with the Pope; with royalty. The BBC – staffed by career journalists, not people who’ve worked in corporate companies – only seem to cover big business stories when they’re job losses or tax dodges. And they cover these stories excellently and impartially. But we can only judge how excellent and impartial the BBC is based on the stories they report: and not on the ones they don’t.

Would a media that could be a little less impartial, and able to take more of a campaigning stance, be better? It’s difficult to argue that American television news is better; but perhaps that’s not the discussion to have. The question is whether we’d hear more stories; whether our agenda might be less controlled; whether the news that is covered is done so in a little more depth or done in a more engaging way. I think that’s what might happen. And I see that as being good for the country. Don’t you?

Simon Kelsey,

For the first three days, nobody did take any interest in the expenses situation, because the Telegraph was a Tory paper, and the paper had focused exclusively on Labour MPs that had been caught up in the scandal. It wasn’t until the fourth day that they revealed a large number of Tories had done the same thing, and only then, people began to take notice. Until then, they thought it was the same old partisan rubbish that we’re used to seeing from the Conservative press.

Now you tell me that it wasn’t deliberate that they spent 3 days reporting on Labour MPs before reporting on Conservative MPs, and even after that, the majority of their coverage concentrated on the Labour MPs rather than the Tories, with exceptions like that Devon idiot who went on Radio 4’s World At One, and claimed that the public had no right to know what MPs were spending taxpayers money on.

In short, the Conservative press’s coverage of that scandal, cost Labour the 2010 election. The only saving grace was Cameron didn’t have a storng enough presence to capture a lot of those who deserted Labour in that election.

James Cridland,

You should spend some time looking at how news providers in other countries cover the news. I will often look at various news sources from across the world, from Canada, the US, Ireland, Europe, South Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It really is refreshing to read the different ways articles are written and to spot the agendas behind them.

Taken in the context of all the various sources that I look at, the BBC tends to be pretty close, most of the time. They don’t always get it right, but generally they are pretty good. CBC in Canada, SBS in Australia, ABC in Australia are also excellent. I have apps on my iPod Touch from Reuters, AP and AFP and they are all excellent with their coverage.

Amongst some of the worst, are Fox News Channel from US, Press TV from Iran, RT from Russia, and Sun News Network from Canada. Their biases are the most transparent and easy to spot. RT also at times acts like a Russian National news channel, more than an international news channel. Sun News in Canada spouted absolute nonsense last year during coverage of the US presidential election, making up fictitious numbers showing Romney having a massive lead, which they were massively caught out on.

EuroNews isn’t bad, but their coverage is very pro-EU at times. Al Jazeera, CNN, France 24 are okay, but Al Jazeera still over-favours Middle East, Africa and Asia generally, CNN can be a little too US focused occassionally, and France 24 is obviously a bit French biased.

The more news sources you look at, the easier it gets to spot the bias.

Now you tell me that it wasn’t deliberate that they spent 3 days reporting on Labour MPs before reporting on Conservative MPs

I’m not saying it wasn’t deliberate (I don’t recall if this was the case but I have no reason to doubt you). However, the Conservatives hardly came out of the scandal smelling of roses.

Regardless of how you feel the Telegraph specifically reported this story (and let’s remember that it was reported by many other news providers subsequently, some with very different agendas to the Telegraph’s), I don’t see how you can claim that newspapers, as a whole, are incapable of performing the task of holding those in power to account – they patently do, and are often far more aggressive in doing so than the broadcast media.

In short, the Conservative press’s coverage of that scandal, cost Labour the 2010 election.

Really?

I’m not saying that the expenses scandal (which tarred pretty much every party) didn’t have any influence, but I also seem to remember an incident involving a pensioner in Rochdale and a Prime Minister who forgot he was miked up. Plus the televised debates in which the main thing we learnt was that, according to Gordon Brown, some bloke called Nick had all the answers.

I’d argue that those events (plus the less tangible things – like the economy, which often nobody can do much about but is always going to be blamed on the ruling party when things go wrong) were probably just as, if not more significant factors (not to mention the question of Brown’s leadership itself).

US radio is infamous for it’s shock jocks and opinionated talk show Hosts. Media across the pond has benefited over the years from a hands off approach to regulation that has allowed charcters like Howard Stern to flourish. On the face of it, if the requirement to be impartial was removed,it’s possible we could also hear similar characters on our radio. Unfortunately I think extremely unlkely that the suits currently running our media would allow anyone with even a hint of an opinion within a country mile of their studios. Imho Commercial radio has been turned into a sanitised audio equivalent of wall to wall beige carpet! I wonder whether in todays corporate climate presenters such as Timbo, Caeser, the James Whale of Red Rose radio days, Robbie Vincent or even the legendary George Gale would be allowed a free reign?
Sadly I suspect that the answer to that is a resounding NO!