25th January 2002

Those on the Left who are actively involved in politics are usually the most critical of the coverage of political issues and with good reason, for most of the programmes we see and hear are superficial, personalized and underestimate the intelligence of the listener.

There is of course, this newspaper and a few honourable exceptions, people like John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Paul Foot and Tariq Ali, but the importance of Radio and Television to the establishment is so great that those who hold a dissenting view are held to be a real threat and their influence has to be limited.

The most vivid examples of the power of the media can be found in the case of Soviet jamming of the BBC years ago, the bombing of the Yugoslav TV station in Belgrade during the Kosovo war which was justified on the grounds that it was playing a key role in the 'enemy' camp.

For the same reason the Al Jazeera station was detested by the American and British authorities because they allowed another perspective to be broadcast, including comments by Osama Bin Laden, and last week the Israelis destroyed the Palestinian Radio station to silence it.

I have always been interested in the way in which past wars are covered, once the interest of the powers that be have shifted to new events, allowing the broadcasters greater freedom than they had at the time, and the expose of Suez aggression in a recent programme was a good example of that.

No doubt in twenty years time awards to Cannes will go to some bright producer who has made a programme called 'How we got it wrong in the Balkans' or 'The real consequences of the Afghan war' - but by then it will be too late to help us to see what was happening when we could have done something about it.

Even so the very courageous TV documentary on Bloody Sunday that was shown on ITV was well worth watching and has still come in time to allow us to understand why the Inquiry into what actually happened is so important for the future in Ireland.

When a good programme on a contemporary issue is put out it becomes far more powerful as we saw with the brilliant BBC2 documentary last Sunday 'Correspondent' filmed by Taghi Amirani who went to visit the Makaki refugee camp and talked to those who were refugees and those who ran the camp, both before and after the Taliban was replaced by the Northern Alliance.

What made it so powerful was the objective way in which he conducted the interviews allowing those to whom he spoke to tell their own stories in their own way, and what awful stories they were of bombing and deaths and escape from their homes into a desert tent looking for food and clean water.

He made no attempt to construct a political argument but it was not necessary for the message came across so clearly and those who have possibly never thought of it realizes how the West ignores the death of innocent people whilst remembering and honouring those killed in New York in September.

If this sort of reporting was developed and encouraged in Britain the whole political scene would change as more and more viewers came to see for themselves the real problems that face so many of their fellow citizens.

If, for example, instead of broadcasting the Business News every hour on the hour, throughout the day and night, showing how the Stock markets are moving and highlighting the varying value of the Dollar, the Pound and the Euro, which cannot possibly be of interest to many viewers, we were to get even daily reports on low wages, unemployment, homelessness, deaths from industrial accidents or asbestosis the pressure for action would build up at once and no government afford to could disregard it, and would have to act.

Similarly if we were allowed to hear trade unions to get the same coverage as stockbrokers and permitted to talk about their work, problems and achievements it would tilt the balance of argument in industrial affairs, which is not an unreasonable suggestion as there are well over 7 million trade unionists as compared to a few thousand stockbrokers.

Pensioners, environmentalists and many other voluntary organizations, which now only get a chance if there is trouble and then have to face hostile cross-examination from the pundits should be helped to make their own programmes so we can hear what they are trying to tell us.

The public attitude to politics might even change if instead of the ritualized and synthetic abuse which goes on at prime minister's questions on TV were to be replaced by some of the excellent speeches made by independent back-benchers which we never hear and which the whips in all parties would not want us to hear because they are 'off-message'.

But just by setting out the case for a genuinely free and independent press and broadcasting system explains precisely why the top people would never agree - for they understand better what a transformation it would bring about in the political climate of the nation, which is the last thing they want.

Henry Vlll nationalized the Church of England because he knew how necessary it was to control the power of the priests and the BBC was nationalized by a Tory government to control the broadcasters, and we have to campaign for a free media even more actively if we want a better system here.

25/1/02