Among yesterday’s front pages was a data visualisation which, at first glance, was one of the most effective I’ve ever seen: the Independent had made an infographic showing yesterday’s £6bn budget cuts in context - as a fraction of a debt mountain.
Then I looked closer - and something’s very, very wrong.
Can you tell what it […]
Impartiality on TV news is hot stuff at the moment, especially with respect to the BBC. Jeff Jarvis is talking about it here, Adrian Monck over here, and MediaGuardian here (and about twelve other pages today) - and that’s just what I could find in five minutes or so.
The BBC focus is of course due to their recent review of impartiality. It’s debatable whether an organisation is really capable of judging itself impartial, so it’s not surprising so much discussion has popped up. What seems to be universally accepted is that the BBC should be impartial (whether it is impartial, of course, is more contentious), and I don’t plan to dispute that. What interests me is whether TV news more generally should be allowed to take a viewpoint.
In the US, Fox news clearly has a political perpective. This is well known, and any viewer stumbling onto the channel’s coverage is unlikely to mistake it for unbiased coverage of events. No similar channel exists in the UK - Sky news is scrupulously non-partisan - as are all UK news programmes. This is required in broadcasting law.
Should it be, though? Perhaps not. TV news is trusted more by viewers than newspapers (and both rate far more highly than blogs, but that’s another story). Impartiality likely helps this. But audience figures are falling, and perhaps livelier, partisan coverage might help bring viewers back.
I once argued with ITN anchor Alistair Stewart about just this. His view was that as viewers are able to “stumble upon” a news broadcast, they may not be aware of its bias before they start watching - risking a blurring of fact and opinion. This is a fair point, but I would suggest that not all newspaper readers are thoroughly aware of the political leanings (and reasons for said leanings) of the UK media market. Perhaps such ‘ignorance’ is more likely for television, but there’s no clear cut argument for allowing bias in one format and not in another.
Personally, I would prefer high quality, objective broadcasting. However, there is no use in high quality reporting that no-one watches. It may be the case that to save TV journalism, we will have to accept partiality, bias and maybe even spin. In a multi-channel climate, with institutions like the BBC remaining as broadcasters ‘of record’, this need not necessarily be detrimental. A future with a variety of news channels with different bias and tone (not unalike the newspaper market at present) is infinitely preferable (to me, at least) than a mere one or two news services producing minimal output
I look forward to seeing what happens - just as I look forward to seeing the BBC’s response to the latest furore over their own reports.