The myth of press freedom exposed THE BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) - a pillar of the British and international establishment - has been shaken from top to bottom by two major controversies. It has suffered an unprecedented one-day strike by its journalistic staff, and a dramatic weakening of its international prestige as an independent institution. This has created a stormy debate about the whole future of broadcasting in Britain. The author of the following article is a worker for the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. DAVY JONES
BRITAIN Fein's growing popularity in the
North of Ireland.
The British media's treatment of the Irish problem' first succumbed to censorship in 1971 after the introduction of internment. Reports of the torture and atrocities committed at that time by the British Army led to politicians calling for 'patriotic censorship'. Lord Hill, the chairperson of the BBC Governors, said: The BBC and its staff abhor the terrorism of the IRA and report their campaign with revulsion ... As between the
British Army and the gunmen, the
BBC is not and cannot be impartial." The prized 'balance' of the BBC on current affairs programmes was officially out of the window. New ground rules were introduced for journalists covering Ireland - the so-called reference upwards system, whereby any programmes on Ireland had to be approved at the highest level. (1)
As a result, a whole string of programmes, fifty in all, have been banned by the broadcasting authorities since 1971. These include documentaries, plays, even a video by the Police rock group! Not surprisingly a planned programme on media coverage of Ireland was itself banned. Since 1979 there have been no TV interviews with members of the IRA at all despite their obvious and growing public support among sections of the community in Ireland. Any nationalist politicians who are interviewed also have to be 'balanced' either by hostile questioning or by another interview with an alternative point of view. Needless to say Government spokespersons or traditional figures of the establishment do not require such 'balance'
But that is the 'British' way of censoring - not direct intervention so much as subtle behind the scenes manoeuvring. It was this 'normal' method of establishment censorship and self-censorship that Leon Brittan and the Tory Government had broken from by their unsubtle intervention. As former Labour Home Secretary Merlyn Rees, who himself suppressed many an Irish programme, put it at the height of the controversy: Why Leon Brittan had to publicly write to the BBC Governors to get the film banned I'll never know, why didn't he just pick up the phone and do it as many others had done before him.' But that is not the way the Thatcher Government works. It not only wants to get its way, it also wants to do it publicly and to humiliate its opponents in the process. It is a Government committed to 1. For a detailed study of the British media and Ireland see Ireland: the Propaganda War' by Liz Curtis, Pluto Press, London 1984.
It all began when a journalist on the Sunday Times. (a newspaper which has been progressively taken over by hard-line Thatcherites in the last five years asked Margaret Thatcher a hypothetical question about her attitude to any TV interview with a leading IRA member. Her 'utter condemnation' was blazed across the front page on July 28, together with the news that the BBC was to show a documentary featuring Martin MeGuinness, an elected Sinn Fein member of the Northern Extreme Loyalist, together amban. The press hounds rushed to the Home Secretary, Leon Brittan: what was he going to do about it, as the prime minister had clearly expressed her view. Within hours Leon Brittan wrote to the BBC Board of Governors appealing to them not to screen the programme. On July 30 the Governors met and decided to withdraw the film. The Sunday Times had got what it wanted.
But nobody bargained for the response that the ban brought. BBC journalists are not exactly the most radical bunch of trade unionists, but they were outraged that their Board of Governors could give in so easily to pressure from the government. In a whirlwind of activity over the following days, first the BBC journalists, then other news journalists in TV and radio all round the country, and finally other BBC staff, all voted overwhelmingly to support a one day strike on August 7. The television and radio were full of the debate, newspapers saturated with articles, and a mighty range of public opinion, including the Labour and Liberal
Parties, weighed in to complain of government censorship.
The strike itself received huge support from BBC staff and journalists. It was extraordinary to see TV newsreaders and personalities on the picket line carrying placards, and stopping lorry drivers at the entrance to the BBC. Every radio and television station in the country was without news bulletins. Even the BBC world service went on strike for the day for the first time in its history. Overseas listeners to the BBC World Service were treated to eerie Sovietstyle music broadcasts instead. Overseas camera crews and journalists rushed to Britain to cover the BBC strike. It made the lead story in many countries across the world. The impossible had happened - the BBC was on strike, led by the journalists.
Ironically the programme at the centre of the controversy - At the Edge of the Union' - was nothing particularly unusual. It included simple interviews with McGuinness and Campbell on their political and personal beliefs, and showed them to be politicians of conviction yet ordinary human beings. McGuinness himself has frequently appeared on Ulster TV as a local elected politician to comment on local political and community affairs. Other, more controversial, programmes have appeared on Ireland in recent years without attracting such direct and public Government intervention to stop them. It is clear that the Government hoped to use this example as a way of tightening up on the already restrictive guidelines which exist on broadcast coverage of Irish affairs, as a way of furthering their war against Sinn
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
breaking the mould of the post-war British consensus.
It was therefore no surprise when the calm after the censorship storm was immediately broken again by media revelations about vetting of senior BBC staff by the Government's security services, MI5. To add insult to injury the vetting was carried out by staff in a room in the BBC's own headquarters led by an MI5 Brigadier! Again broadcasters and journalistie staff were in uproar over the news. National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members at the largest BBC building voted to demand an end to all vetting, and the threat of another round of industrial action by journalists still hangs over the BBC.
There is no doubt that the BBC's image at home and abroad has been badly tarnished. Held up as the model for broadcasting integrity all round the world, the BBC has been shown to be as craven in its capitulation to simple government pressure as the media in many other countries. Held up as the epitome of fair play and unbiased reporting at home, it has been revealed to be a timid lap dog of the government of the day. the Tory to Dune was a sulained In recent years the media have played a major role in supporting government in times of the Falklands/ Malvinas war there was a sustained campaign by the right-wing press to stop any media airing of views hostile to the Government's war. The more unpleasant tabloid papers excelled themselves in revolting war hysteria and racism, including the infamous Sun daily newspaper headline 'Gotcha' (got you!) when the General Belgrano was sunk with the loss of hundreds of Argentinian lives. The manipulation of the media during the crisis was very explicit and Orwellian, including a Government spokesperson giving tightlipped press conferences each day to feed the media highly selective information'.
During the historic miners' strike of 1984-85 the role of the media itself became an issue in the dispute. Right wing newspapers like the Daily Express and the Sun found their printworkers refusing to print the paper unless the miners were given a right to reply to outrageous attacks on the union or wholly inaccurate articles. This came to a head when outinod thic same to had when the Daily Express ran a spoof front page entitled "The truth that Scargill dare not tell' purporting to be a 'confession' by Scargill that he had lied to his members about the real reasons for the strike. One week later the Sun tried to run a front page headline "Mine Fuhrer' with a picture of Scargill allegedly giving a Nazi salute. It was stopped by 10 printworkers. During the strike the miners and their supporters secured more than a dozen rights of reply to media bias in the local and national press, and the demand for legislation for a right of reply, as already exists in some European countries, has been growing.
The result of these media performances in times of crisis is a growing public disenchantment with the media. For a long time public opinion polls have shown general scepticism about the reliability of the press to produce fair and unbiased reporting. But a recent BBC Research Department Survey showed similar scepticism for the first time about news and current affairs. An amazing 46 per cent of those questioned said they believed TV news and current affairs were sometimes deliberately misleading, against only 38 per cent who felt they were generally honest!
The state of the media in Britain has seriously deteriorated under Thatcher. Not only has there been increasing pressure on the BBC to censor its own material, but a newlyannounced Government inquiry -the Peacock inquiry - has been set. up to look into the future of public sector broadcasting. There are fears of the break up of the BBC and its hiving off into the private sector where the multinational media corporations of Rupert Murdoch and others could take their pickings. Media trade unionists fear widespread job losses as a result and a drastic decline in broadcasting standards. The press too has become increasingly monopolised under Thatcher. Three men, via their multinationals, now own 75 percent of all daily papers sold in Britain, and 83 percent of all Sunday newspapers - that is Robert Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch and Lord Matthews. And the spectrum of political opinion represented editorially in the British daily papers is narrower than virtually any other country in Europe, with just one paper - the Daily Mirror - supporting Labour, and then only the extreme right wing of the Labour Party.
Within the labour movement the demand is growing for a break up of the media monopolies, for the establishment of a labour movement daily or Sunday paper, and for an end to Government interference in the BBC. There is increasing support for democratising the Governing structures of the BBC. The Governors are currently appointed by the Government of the day and consist of Lords, Ladies, and ex-Oxbridge students from the Establishment. The Thatcher Government has used the opportunity to stack the Governors full of their tame poodles.
With the defeat of the miners' strike, the journalists' action at the BBC was a ray of hope for the future, especially after the appalling role that some of their members played during the miners' strike itself. As in so many other fields the Government's brazen and ruthless attempts to jerk the whole political to a raising of minorty the consciousness amongst at least a minority of the labour movement about the need for alternative radical solutions. The media plays an increasing important role in the plans of Governments in the 1980s. It could be that the Thatcher Government badly miscalculated over how blatantly it could manipulate the media in Britain. Since the BBC controversies all opinion polls have shown the Tories trailing badly in second or third place behind Labour and the Alliance. Meanwhile organisations like the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom-have been showing the banned BBC film to large audiences around the country. Censorship is not a popular political platform to stand on and the Tories are well and truly identified with it. The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom can be contacted at 9, Poland Street London WIV 3DG. Tel: (01) 437 2795.
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International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
PHILIPPINES