Kavanagh et al: British Politics 5e
Political commentary
Essay questionsKavanagh et al: British Politics 5e
The Media in UK Politics: A 'Feral Beast', 'Innately Liberal' or Both?
In one of his final acts before departing office, Tony Blair delivered a speech to a meeting of journalists at Reuters on 12 June 2007. Describing the contemporary media as a "feral beast" which tears "people and reputations to bits", the outgoing Prime Minister expressed the opinion that the relationship between public life and the media has been damaged in a manner that requires urgent repair. For Blair, scandal and controversy are the focus of much media reporting of politics with the errors made by politicians attributed to venality and conspiracy rather than mistakes in judgment. News reporting and commentary have become confused with the latter increasingly taking precedence over the former. Finally, Blair claims that media reporting lacks perspective and habitually resorts to hyperbole.
The same month also saw a somewhat different assessment of the media's responsibilities. The BBC Trust's report, "From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel. Safeguarding impartiality in the 21st century", reaffirms impartiality as the key characteristic of the BBC but acknowledges the need for a "wider and deeper application" across all the BBC's programming.
The report suggests that the BBC has engaged in 'groupthink' which has tended to lead the corporation's programme makers towards a shared world view, described in the report by Andrew Marr as an "innate liberal bias". The report suggests that this has meant that emerging stories on Europe and immigration have been effectively "off-limits". However, particular criticism is reserved for the BBC's relationship with the recent Make Poverty History campaign. The New Year's Day episode of The Vicar of Dibley in 2005 is identified as having broken guidelines. In the episode Geraldine is seen rallying villagers to the Make Poverty History cause. This presented the cause as universal and uncontroversial, and allowed a BBC programme to be seen as endorsing a particular campaign or its agenda. In the subsequent coverage of the Live8 concerts, the BBC adopted a different approach, viewing the concerts as a political campaign and cutting away to the presenter whenever concert goers were shown campaign films in Hyde Park.
As is perhaps inevitable when such a contentious topic as media influence emerges in public debate, both Tony Blair's and the BBC Trust's analyses were met with widely diverging responses. Some believed that these critiques went too far, others that they did not go far enough. What is noticeable in both analyses and the subsequent commentary is the paucity of concrete reforms which might resolve the major difficulties in the relationship between the media and political actors in the UK.
Critical Thinking Questions
1) Read the BBC Trust report (available at: www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.pdf) and Tony Blair's speech (available at: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6744581.stm). What changes in the media and politics in the UK do they identify as responsible for the current difficulties in media coverage of politics?
2) Identify at least three significant criticisms of the analyses advanced by the BBC Trust and Tony Blair.
3) What institutional reforms or behavioural changes do you think are necessary to address the problems identified in the BBC Trust Report and in Tony Blair's speech?
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