From the Sacred Fact
Posted on October 8, 2006
Filed Under Error and bias |
Richard Sambrook is the director of BBC global news and a blogger. The blog raises questions I keep raising so here we go.
Richard’s blog is Sacred Facts “Something thought to be actual as opposed to invented”.
Perhaps he’ll come over here and walk with the profane for a while because the idea that something out there has such an elevated status, and that it has natural owners, is what really marks the difference between my own view of news and those of people I’ve worked with.
First let’s say what news is. News, and media creativity in general, are more important than we realise for reasons we don’t acknowledge.
They are indeed the cornerstone of our society. The reason: the broad schedule of news and entertainment is a medium that keeps the economy going. You cannot imagine western democracies functioning without ads and you cannot imagine an orderly society without newspapers and TV companies that make the compromises necessary to keep running ads.
What we invent and produce is sold via TV and newspapers. They are not just central to “free speech” but to economic order.
The fragmentation of these mediators, under pressure from IPTV and blogs, is going to have a profound effect on the whole structure of an advanced economy.
Corporations will have to sustain their credibility and promote their brands across thirty or more mediating content types. That means dilution across the traditional ones (which in turn will raise pressure on publicly funded media).
Playing such a central role every news organisation, including those that don’t take ads, and the structure of news gathering and decision making is necessarily a compromise.
It’s a compromise that has worked very well for us for 150 years. Its nature is: maintain equilibrium.
News organisations cannot ask fundamental questions about how our system operates - for example about how our food supply and pharmaceutical industries have created a moral panic over weight, eating and health, and indeed seem to have converted the human body to a playground for officially sanctioned but dangerous drugs (Vioxx, statins, chemo, antacids, SSRIs).
News and current affairs can, for example, do the SSRI story but they can’t do the fundamental inquiry into how our society has changed into one that is fundamentally drug dependent, and why?
It is also necessarily elitist. I’ve worked on projects to broaden the media franchise (the BBC ran some in its community division) but they were never pushed far enough or given sufficient prominence, and they’re easily folded. But you cannot spread power without raising many alternative viewpoints and disturbing equilibrium.
The result of both these is blogging and vidcasting. It’s the desire of many of us to make more fundamental inquiries, to object to elitism in practical ways and to express anger at having been let down by the Fourth Estate.
The question we also ask of course is how we can be objective in blogs, and hpw we can find things out, without the resources of a BBC, CNN or Sky.
My response is I’ve never been impressed by the objectivity of any news organisation. When the London Observer was owned by a metals company Lohnro, journalists complained about the more obvious compromises like not being able to criticise oppressive regimes.
At one time, in the 1940s, the Times of London, Observer and several US papers and magazines were owned by a tight knit group around the Astor family which simultaneously dominated London and Washington society (Vince was Roosevelt’s best mate and the London Astors owned the paper of record). We’ve yet to hear the true story behind World War II because this cabal controlled information,and did not protest when Churchill had many important records destroyed in 1945.
You could tell similar tales across the history of the press and TV.
The point is though that these are necessary compromises and they will always happen. We’re grown up enough to accept that but we shouldn’t assume there’s something sacred in there. The opposite of scared is not invented, it’s compromised, blurred at the edges, toned down, over-expressed perhaps. We all do it.
The question for the BBC is not just will it co-opt bloggers for the purposes of fleshing out its report but will it also use them to deepen and broaden the inquiry into our own part of the world?
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5 Responses to “From the Sacred Fact”
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Interesting post haydn with which I largely agree. However, I think we should strive for something higher, accepting we probably cant achieve it as the attempt alone raises standards.
“Sacred Facts” is intended to be at least partly ironic, but also of course a reference to C P Scott’s call for rational, tolerant and fair minded debate:
“Comment is free, but facts are sacred. “Propaganda”, so called, by this means is hateful. The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard. Comment also is justly subject to a self-imposed restraint. It is well to be frank; it is even better to be fair. This is an ideal. Achievement in such matters is hardly given to man. We can but try, ask pardon for shortcomings, and there leave the matter.”
I feel we need a little more of that spirit these days.
Hello Richard, and welcome to the site. I\’m sure visitors here appreciate the conversation.
Ok so we want more fairness - you\’ll see that issue raised here too.
By the way yesterday the BBC defended Graham Norton on the grounds that he has a frank and open personality - I\’d defend him but not on those terms. We can be frank, open and offensive and I think you are suggesting we can also be frank, open and considerate.
Still, welcome. It\’s difficult to be strident in defence of fairness but we need to be.
We all love facts but the issue that many people who avoid the mainstream press (and I’ve become one of those over the last few years) have is with the selective presentation of facts to sell a message.
As an idealistic young man, I thought the point of journalism was an unrelenting search for the truth. As I got older, I realised it was actually an unrelenting effort to sell me a particular world view.
A simple example is the situation in the middle east. If you read most UK or Irish press on anything to do with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (or if it is a bbc.co.uk news story, “conflict”), the facts are presented to make Israel look bad. If you read most US press, the opposite is the case. Neither are lying, both are just trying to sell me a view of the world.
The same is true of blogs but the difference with them is that you generally have the unfiltered view of an individual. You spend a lot of time working through the dross like the 9/11 conspiracy theory whackos but bit by bit you find people whose opinion you trust. You may not always agree with them but you find the ones with clarity of thought. And back to Haydn’s point, they probably engage in far less compromise than any newspaper or news organisation.
By finding that set of people who, through their writing, have created that trust, you effectively build your own newspaper. You may even have a new breed of editors who create these virtual newspapers but on a massive scale, so everyone can find something which suits them. They also have one thing which is incredibly powerful: direct feedback either via comments or trackbacks.
What then for the mainstream press? Do we still need them so that we have an original source for news/reporting? I don’t know. Do we need the seal of approval of the BBC or RTE or NBC or would we just prefer the unedited footage of some guy with a cameraphone on the scene of any story or someone live blogging it?
In the riots in Dublin a while back, I saw no newspaper reporting, my entire view of events came from blogs and associated amateur pictures. This is from the Irish blogosphere which is tiny but there was enough variety of opinion and people on the ground so that I didn’t miss silly headlines like “Yobs on rampage” or socioeconomic analysis of their motivations by the deep and meaningful columnists.
I’m rambling I know but when you are in the middle of a sea change like this (as I’m convinced we are), having a clear view is pretty difficult.
Publicly funded organisations like the BBC or RTE have a huge opportunity to embrace this and become the champions of the two-way web or two-way TV. How this is done whilst still remaining relevant to as many people as possible, I don’t know.
Hi Conor and welcome back. I think your frustration is clear. We all have viewpoints and we’re sick of seeing them organised for us or misinterpreted for us.I doubt yet the BBC or RTE know how far this change is going to go though so we’ll be holding our breath for real innovation.
Thanks for the interesting IPTV story. I’m trying to learn everything I can about IPTV and glad I stumbled on your site. I find this new technology so amazing and exciting.