Conclusion
The whole emphasis of this book has deliberately been on method and technique, not motive and not the social impact of television news or its convergence with the Internet and the web. Whatever the medium of delivery – through thin widescreen TV sets with hard drives and multimedia access, or traditional receivers with terrestrial services – it is all still a matter of content which has been stroked at some stage by a human decision. Those people might be journalists, making choice on behalf of the audience. Or it might be the viewer, picking through a selection of news items he or she chooses to watch. As mentioned before, he or she might choose to airbrush out of their personal history events which affect the world and affect them without them realizing it, matters which they might not, at a particular moment, choose to know about.
Although it might have been tempting to suggest how individual news services should perceive their role in society, with particular emphasis on how they should approach the hypersensitive areas of news selection and processing, it would be wrong to have done so and naive to believe it would make any difference. Why a programme chooses to operate the way it does is a matter between those editorially responsible for it and the public which views it. Each news programme is guided by its own set of principles, most of which have their origins in both the prevailing attitudes of the time and the political and social ethos of the country in which it is broadcasting.
Editorial values are therefore inevitably bound to differ, and because large numbers of broadcasting organizations are owned by governments, it follows that what passes for news in one country will not necessarily match the concept of what passes for news in another. For every journalist struggling towards the goal of balanced objectivity, there are others for whom such niceties are of no concern. To put it another way, one man’s objective report revealing government incompetence or corruption is another’s betrayal of the society which succours him.
It is a conundrum which has existed ever since governments began to understand the power of the medium. One experienced Western journalist, seconded as news adviser to the television station of a Middle East kingdom, remembers the frustration of being quite unable to persuade those in charge that their judgement was ‘at fault’ because they insisted on beginning every main bulletin with news of the official activities of the King, followed by the official activities of the Queen, then the Crown Prince, and so on right the way through the royal household. All this was followed by speeches by the Prime Minister and the activities of other government ministers. Domestic news came next, most of it of stunning triviality. Then came foreign news, led by equally trivial events about countries considered friendly to the government.
Later, during the adviser’s stay, a revolution took place. The monarchy was overthrown and exiled, a republic proclaimed. The editors of the news responded at once. From then on, every bulletin began with news of the official activities of the President of the Revolutionary Council, then the activities of each Council member in turn. Domestic news came next, in much the same way as before, followed by foreign news about countries which were considered friendly towards the new leadership. Former allies, together with the royal family, were completely ignored. The journalists carried on doing what they saw as their duty, serving the interests of the state. That the circumstances had changed so drastically made no difference to the principle.
My own experience, some years later, was of the assassination of a British public figure: it aroused immense interest and concern in some parts of the world, but rated no more than a passing mention by the television news service I had been asked to advise. Later discussion about the treatment of the story got nowhere: the editors were unconvinced their decision was ‘wrong’ in any way. They preferred to devote their limited airtime to reporting matters they considered more relevant to their audience. Who is to say they were mistaken?
Even now, in the younger democracies of Europe, it is not unknown for editors to fall into disfavour for paying insufficient attention to publicizing government ‘initiatives’, or too much to the opposition’s suggestions. The availability of satellite-delivered international news services has greatly weakened the power and influence of state-funded services. A bunch of armed ‘rebels’ in a remote area of central Asia will quite happily sit on top of a mountain stronghold and watch CNN or the BBC to witness what the President of the United States has to say about the latest activities in their country. The President and his press advisers know it!
As a whole, though, the question of whether Western editorial standards have improved or dropped is entirely a matter of subjective assessment. There is a view that some broadcasters, while rightly taking more account of what their viewers are saying, have become nervous of being tarred with the brush of tabloid excess. A newscaster, unhappy with the nightly diet, has raised the concept of ‘good news’ reporting. Privacy, violence and intrusion have all become big issues. Internal and external ‘guidelines’ and ‘codes of conduct’ seem at times to have taken the place of individual journalistic judgement and experience.
There is a valid argument that taste changes, but Decency never does. This has all to do with what social psychologists call the ‘prevailing moral climate’. It depends on the time we live in and the place we live in. In most democracies that usually means these: be kind to old people, children and animals; treat people as you expect to be treated yourself; preserve religious and political freedom; maintain a free press and promote and tolerate minorities in society and support the traditional family. All news values reflect change in society. It was a big news story in 1939 when a German economist was appointed as director of a big British company, but only because everyone knew war with Germany was probable. In the 1970s the labour correspondents were busy because in Britain a monetarist Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher) let good money drive out bad and believed business could not buck the market. That meant she would not support industries which could not survive in the market. There were strikes, job losses and closed factories. By 2000 and beyond other issues dominate social interest and as a result they have crawled up the running orders of news bulletins: education (driven by social and technological change), environment and food safety, job security and mobility, the split between people who are time rich and time poor and the constant evolution of information technology.
The climate of taste and ethics has also reminded television journalists that the fear of crime can have a worse affect on people than real crime itself. It means throwing out the old news maxim: ‘If it bleeds it leads!’, on the grounds that the real evidence shows that violent crime is rare; that where you live has most bearing on whether or not you are a victim of crime; that most victims of homicide are actually young children and not really drunk young men outside a bar on a Saturday night.
No sensible holder of editorial responsibility sets out to mimic the agenda of some crime-dominated newscasts elsewhere. While aberrations do occur, usually with hell to pay afterwards, mainstream television news in the United Kingdom does not, as a matter of daily routine, deliberately show gratuitous violence and gore, linger on big close-ups of the dead and dying, expose the bereaved or suffering to unnecessary intrusion, hound ordinary people for real or supposed transgressions or stuff newscasts with salacious crime stories.
By all means exercise discretion, be sure to accentuate the positive as well as the negative, refrain from the litany of routine criminal activity. But – and it is a very large but – cut out all the unpleasant bits, ignore some of the more distasteful aspects of human behaviour, avoid upsetting anyone, sanitize the news and you do the audience a greater disservice by distorting reality.
There are other concerns – for one, the definition of news. ‘News is where you have a camera crew and a satellite dish’ is among the more cynical, particularly abroad. That does not make that untrue. Television news cannot report a terrible war by showing pictures only of men and women in smart clothes around a table at peace talks when on the ground there is no peace. Fly a camera team to cover a story on the other side of the world, meet the expense of hotels, transport, e-mails, satellite communications, and the understandable temptation is to wring every ounce out of it, more than once, worth it or not. Another concern is the ability to make cool news judgement under pressure. If they are to exercise the delicate control necessary to produce programmes which are as balanced and thoughtful as the constraint of time allows, editors need to stand back from the fray, not allow themselves to be influenced by late incoming pictures only because they are late and available, or to succumb to the temptation of keeping reporters on the spot, long after the stories they are covering are over, just for the cosmetic effect of ‘going live’.
There is also a problem faced by modern live and continuous news. There is a tyranny about live news when it deals with events which move fast and where lives are at risk. Too much analysis at too early a stage in an event can lead to false assumptions. Politicians and negotiators can now feel under pressure to act quickly rather than sit back briefly and think out the right solution. Television journalists are of course aware of all this and know the implications of demanding constant ‘updates’.
There are still deficiencies in television news. Here are some.
The economy has been under-reported. Too many interviewers allow politicians to get away unchallenged with the most outrageous generalities and statements about economic affairs. Coverage of social affairs seems to be based almost entirely on stories which boil down to a plea for funds – justified or not – usually from the public purse. Sports news is reported with one hand tied behind its back: the other is bound by contractual arrangements for coverage which prevent full access to people or events. With a few honourable exceptions television reporters do not pay enough attention to the pictures: listen to their scripts. They might as well be working for radio. The same ‘library’ shots can be noticed cropping up, unannounced as such, to make packages more visual. There remains an obsessive love-affair with pictures of the exteriors of buildings; worse, with journalists interviewing each other. How often, it seems, is the conclusion of a substantial report followed immediately by the same reporter repeating much that was said in the preceding two or three minutes. Confusion continues to exist about the difference between information which viewers find useful and speculation – especially in ‘previews’ about what might happen at events yet to take place – which they do not. Alongside that comes an inability to recognize when coverage becomes repetitive and saturated. Yes, there is sometimes too much crime content. Maybe it is because the police telephone information line giving details of the latest felonies is the saviour of newsroom-based journalists with few resources struggling to fill short bulletins.
As for the value of television news as a whole – if it were possible to conduct such an experiment, it would be interesting to isolate a sample audience from any news source other than ITN, BBC, Sky News or GMTV for a few weeks and then test how much they had learned about what was happening in the world. It would be good to think they would be well-informed about a wide range of subjects. Regrettably, perhaps not.
Where does this leave the enthusiastic potential newcomer? Not too depressed, I hope. The Internet can give you what you want, but what you want is also not always what you need. For all its many inadequacies, television news remains the most reliable provider of untainted information, a worthwhile and satisfying place to be for any journalist who believes passionately in and strives unceasingly for high and impartial editorial standards. At the turn of the century the whole face of conventional television news programming has changed beyond recognition, bringing with it new and exciting possibilities as well as uncertainty over employment. For anyone wondering whether it is worth taking the risk to face such an uncertain future, there is a crumb of comfort. One sentence from The Task of Broadcasting News, a study made for the BBC General Advisory Council as long ago as 1976 and still relevant today, says it all: ‘If ever broadcasting were pared to the proverbial bone, news would have to be that bone.’