Abstract
In the spring of 1993 John Smith, leader of the Labour Party, wrote to the chairman of the Independent Television Commission urging it not to allow the move of the main ITV evening news from ten o'clock. Shortly afterwards, John Major, the Prime Minister, wrote in the same vein. At first glance it seems extraordinary that the leaders of the two main political parties should bother themselves with a television scheduling matter. That they did so underscores the importance of television journalism in the United Kingdom's understanding of itself and the world about it. But then broadcast news is by far the nation's most trusted source of information: the latest Ofcom survey had 68 per cent of us rating it trustworthy, far more than any recent figure for the printed press. If not the gold standard, it is certainly the solid silver as against the bronze or even base metal of the prints.
Steven Barnett's judicious and readable book asks how British television achieved its quality of journalism and lays out why he believes it is in decline. Arnold Wesker once described a journalist as “one who possesses himself of a theory and lures the truth towards it”. Barnett seeks to substantiate his theory with a wealth of evidence and persuasive narrative, comparing the British story with the experience of the United States.
Some individual heroes emerge: Richard Dimbleby, Grace Wyndham-Goldie, Sir Robert Fraser, Geoffrey Cox and, yes, John Birt. Yet the true champion for Barnett is the enlightened and rigorous regulatory system that oversaw British public service television. This created the BBC and its aspiration to impartial journalism; it required news and current affairs from the new commercial broadcasters who were to operate under a similar need for impartiality, albeit with a livelier tone. It also created powerful institutions that enabled investigative journalists to take on the established might of the state. Barnett recounts, fair-mindedly, some famous examples of this, among them the BBC's Real Lives and Thames Television's Death on the Rock.
Barnett identifies a golden age of TV journalism in the 1970s and 80s. “In a relatively small economy compared to the United States, two confident and well-funded news gatherers competed for audiences, old-fashioned scoops, speed and professionalism — but not for revenue: and established current affairs programmes thrived in peak time on four channels…”
For Barnett, it all started to go wrong with the 1990 Broadcasting Act, which began to dismantle the existing arrangements in the name of competition and commercial opportunity. For ITV, a prominent news service remained a given, but protection was withdrawn from current affairs, leading to the eventual demise of two once-great ITV programmes, This Week and World in Action. The party leaders' letters helped preserve News at Ten — but only for a while. In 1999 the ITV leadership killed off its second best known brand (after Coronation Street), only to regret it. News at Ten was later restored but, for all the skill and energy of its journalists, the damage was done.
The BBC's problems had been different and from within. The number and scale of the journalism outlets were such that they were hard to keep tabs on, let alone control under the old, often laissez-faire editorial structures. A series of mistakes led to the Governors losing confidence in management. Director-General Alasdair Milne was sacked and John Birt was brought in with a brief to combine and reform BBC news and current affairs. It was an uncomfortable time for many, but the result was a far better resourced, better run and more expert body of journalists.
There will always be mistakes. When the next great eruption occurred with the Gilligan-David Kelly affair, it was less the error itself than the lack of grip in quickly investigating and dealing with it that led to the highly-critical Hutton Report. Down went another D-G. Barnett is excellent on the whole episode.
I would argue that BBC news is now stronger than it has ever been. The cadre of specialist editors and correspondents introduced in the 90s provide an interpretive expertise that once had to be supplied by interviewing experts from the press. It has also enabled the BBC to break more stories and originate more scoops than ever it could in Barnett's golden age.
His overall thesis, however, convinces. He is gloomy, perhaps too gloomy, about the future. He sees “market-driven journalism” swamping “democracy-driven” journalism, at least outside of the BBC.
Last year our bright eyed and bushy tailed Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, set out guiding principles for the next Communications Act, “a deregulatory approach… is the aim”. Before he becomes too excited he might reflect upon the remarks of a conservative consultant to Fox News in the USA, quoted by Barnett: “I've never been able to figure out how competition makes cars better and television news worse… In other industries, competition creates new and different products. In television, it makes all the products look the same.”