Abstract
They spent hundreds of hours honing their methodology, gathering their source material, categorising, analysing, evaluating and finally drawing their conclusions. The result of their labour, published earlier this year, measured the proportion of news broadcast by BBC 5 Live. The report, by Tim Luckhurst, Ben Cocking and their colleagues at the University of Kent's Centre for Journalism Studies, clocked it at 45 per cent. This is somewhat less than the 75 per cent required by Ofcom.
The report's 44 pages of detailed investigation pointed out that the corporation was reluctant to define news. It accused 5 Live of blending sport with news, and passing off the former as the latter. News UK, which owns talkRADIO and talkSPORT, funded the research, and must have been mightily relieved at the findings, which confirmed what they had long suspected.
If Luckhurst et al thought they were inviting the BBC to partake in a reasoned, scholarly debate about the definition of news, they were in for a surprise. The reply from the corporation was the intellectual equivalent of a brick through the window. A spokesperson for 5 Live said: “This is shameless paid-for lobbying. Given this report was paid for by the parent company of TalkSPORT, people can judge its credibility for themselves.”
The BBC was not challenging the report's methodology. Instead it was saying that research by a team of academics at a respected university should be ignored because it had been paid for. There is something troubling about the BBC's remarks. For a start, there's the tone of moral superiority. Then there's the defamatory innuendo that critics of the BBC are mere hirelings serving the squalid interests of commerce. Putting these objections to one side, what is wrong, one is entitled to ask, with research which has been commissioned, or funded by a research grant?
The BBC frequently pays organisations to carry out audience research. For example, in 2016 the BBC commissioned the company ICM Unlimited to carry out a Purpose Remit Survey to measure how well the corporation delivered its “six public purposes”. The report was largely positive. It announced that “four in five (78 per cent) would miss the BBC if it were no longer there”, and “the proportion of the public holding a favourable impression of the BBC (58 per cent) has increased since 2015”. Does the BBC think its Purpose Remit Survey should be dismissed as “shameless paid-for lobbying”? Presumably not. Did News UK issue a press statement impugning the integrity of the ICM researchers? No, they did not.
Surely the right way to think of the University of Kent researchers, and the ICM researchers, is as expert witnesses. The purpose of expert witnesses in judicial proceedings is to give independent, expert opinion to help the court decide where truth lies. But expert witnesses are not expected to compile their reports gratis. Their fees are paid by the side which instructs them. The whole point about expert witnesses is that they have expertise which others lack. Their knowledge, skill and experience can be used to gather and interpret factual evidence. In this case, the University of Kent's funders were undoubtedly pleased with the results, and the BBC displeased. But instructing a team of reputable academics to scrutinise the behaviour of a publicly funded body is entirely reasonable. Indeed, in a democracy it is essential. Luckhurst et al state their methodology, present their data and explain their conclusions. That's exactly what academics, and journalists, are supposed to do.
But there was worse to come. The BBC added: “We have asked the University of Kent if it is comfortable one of its academics has been paid to write a report of this type by an organisation that clearly has a commercial interest in the outcome. The author of the report has made other criticisms of 5 Live in the past.”
What is one to make of this? Ignoring the fact that the report was collaborative research by a team of academics, what is the BBC hoping will be the outcome of complaining to Luckhurst's employers? Is there not something very McCarthyesque about this response to criticism? It's like saying: “We know where you live.” What next? A horse's head in bed?
And what about the remark that Luckhurst has previously criticised 5 Live? What if he has? Luckhurst et al are perfectly entitled to offer their evidence and argue their case. The BBC is entitled to do the same. What's wrong with letting truth and falsehood grapple?
What is most dispiriting about the BBC's response is its refusal to engage with the substance of the report, and its eagerness to employ ad hominem tactics. The BBC's response is symbolic of our age. It is an age of tribalism where it is acceptable to toss reasoned argument supported by factual evidence into the intellectual dustbin, if the author is suspected of being a tribal enemy.
We are becoming immune to truth. What counts is partisanship. You are either on our side, or on the other side. Real news is news that supports our tribe, fake news is news that supports yours. The same goes for academic research. If it is useful propaganda, then it is rigorous, trustworthy, and its authors honourable. But if it is unhelpful to us, it is worthless and its authors immoral.
In this world, certainty is to be found in our feelings. We live, as Niall Ferguson noted in The Sunday Times, not in a democracy, but in an “emocracy”, where “feelings matter more than reason”. The BBC feels strongly the research is wrong, so it is wrong. It is not wrong because it is factually wrong. On the contrary, it is expert evidence that the BBC may not be doing what it claims to be doing. But the BBC feels this information is harmful to the tribe. Therefore it is wrong.
A final thought. I am proud to have worked as a BBC journalist for 14 years. But I am equally proud to be writing a PhD, and proud that Tim Luckhurst and Ben Cocking are my supervisors. To which tribe do I belong? Whose side am I on? How can you evaluate what I have written here? Or maybe, just maybe, you could judge my words and arguments impartially on merit, rather than according to your perception of my tribal allegiance. Perhaps you could even consider all sides of the argument and reach your own conclusion. Who knows, it might even catch on.
