The myth of press
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
BRITAIN popularity in the
North of Ireland.
The British media's treatment of problem' first succumbed to censorship in 1971 after the introduction of internment. Reports of the freedom exposed that time by the British Army led to politicians calling for 'patriotic censorship'. Lord Hill, the chairperson of the BBC Governors, said: the IRA and report their campaign with revulsion ..
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
It all began when a journalist on the been progressively
Thatcherites asked Margaret hypothetical about her attitude to any TV interview with a leading member. Her condemnation' front page on July 28, together with the news that the BBC was to show a documentary
McGuinness,
Sinn Fein member of the Northern
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 Sunday
Times had nobody bargained response that the ban are not exactly the most outraged that their
Board of Governors so easily to pressure from the government. In a whirlwind of activity over journalists, then other news journalists in TV and radio all round the country, and finally other BBC staff, all voted day strike on August 7. The television full of the debate, and a mighty range of public opinion, including the Labour and
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. Overrushed 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 the controversy the Edge of the Union' - was nothing interviews with McGuinness and Campbell on their political and personal beliefs, and showed them to be politicians of conviction yet ordinary beings. McGuinness himself has frequently appeared on Ulster TV as a local elected politician to comment on local political and comaffairs. Other, more controprogrammes have appeared on Ireland in recent years without such direct Government intervention to stop them. It is clear that the Government hoped to use this example as a way of tightguidelines which exist on broadcast coverage of Irish affairs, as a way of furthering their
British Army and the gunmen, the
BBC is not and cannot be impartial." on current affairs programmes officially out of the window. New introduced for journalists covering Ireland - the sowhereby any programmes on Ireland had to be approved at the highest result, a whole string of fifty in all, have been banned by the broadcasting authorities since 1971. These include documentaries, plays, even a video by the rock group! Not surprisingly coverage of Ireland was itself banned
1979 there have been no TV IRA at all despite their obvious and growing public support sections of the community in Ireland Any nationalist politicians who are interviewed also have to be "balanced' either by hostile questioning another interview with an alternative point of view. Needless to say Government spokespersons figures of the establishment do not require such "balance'.
But that is the 'British' 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 banned Ill 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 humiliate its opponents in the process. It is a Government committed to
For a detailed study of the British media and Ireland see Ireland: the Propaganda War' by Liz Curtis, Pluto Press, London 1984.
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985 printworkers. During the strike breaking the mould of the post-war miners and their supporters secured
British consensus.
more than a dozen rights of reply
It was therefore no surprise when to media bias in the local and national the calm after the censorship storm press, and the demand for legislation was immediately broken again by for a right of reply, as already exists in media revelations about vetting
European countries, has been senior BBC staff by the Government's growing.
security services, MI5. To add insult
The result of these media performthe vetting was carried out ances in times of crisis is a growing by staff in a room in the BBC's own the public disenchantment headquarters led by an MI5 Brigadier!
media. For a long time public opinion journalistic general scepticism polls have shown staff were in uproar over the reliability of the press about
National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
to produce fair and unbiased reportmembers at the largest BBC building
But a recent
BBC Research ing.
voted to demand an end to all vetting,
Survey showed similar
Department and the threat of another round for the first time about scepticism industrial action by journalists still news and current affairs. An
TV
46 cent of those per amazing
There is no doubt that the BBC's believed TV said questioned they image at home and abroad has been affairs and current were news badly tarnished. Held up as the model deliberately for broadcasting integrity all round against only 38 percent who felt the world, the BBC has been shown to they were generally honest!
be as craven in its capitulation
The state of the media in Britain government media in many other countries. Held
Thatcher. Not only has there been the epitome of fair play and increasing pressure on reporting at home, censor its own material, but a newly been revealed to be a timid lap dog of the government of the day.
- has been set .
the Peacock inquiry up to look into the future of public played a major role in supporting sector broadcasting.
government in times of of the break up of the BBC and its the Falklands/ hiving off into the private sector was a sustained
Malvinas war there multinational the right-wing press corporations of Rupert Murdoch and stop any media airing
Government's
Media trade unionists fear widespread job losses as a result and a drastic papers excelled themselves in revolting broadcasting war hysteria
The press too has become increasingly
Thatcher. Three monopolised their multinationals, the General Belgrano was sunk own 75 per cent of all daily papers the loss of hundreds sold in Britain, and 83 percent of all lives. The manipulation of the media
Sunday newspapers - that is Robert during the crisis was very
Maxwell, Rupert Murdoch and Lord and Orwellian,
Matthews. And the spectrum of polispokesperson tical opinion represented editorially in conferences each the British daily papers is narrower feed the media highly selective than virtually any other country in information'.
Europe, with just one paper - the historic miners'
Mirror - supporting Labour, of 1984-85 the role of the media itself became an issue in the dispute.
Right wing newspapers like the Daily and found their
Express
Sun the refusing to print the printworkers paper unless the miners were given a right to reply to outrageous attacks or wholly the union inaccurate on
This came to a head when articles.
the Daily Express ran a spoof front
"The truth that Scargill page entitled be tell purporting to dare not
"confession' by Scargill that he had and then only the extreme right wing of the Labour Party.
Within the labour movement the up of the media monopolies, for the establishment of a labour movement
For Sunday end to Government interference the BBC. There is increasing support structures of the BBC. The Governors Government of the day and consist of Lords, Ladies, and ex-Oxbridge The Thatcher Government has used Governors full of their tame poodles.
With the defeat of the miners' strike, the jouralists' action at the was a ray of hope for the future, especially after the appalling some of their members played during the miners"
other fields the Government's brazen and ruthless attempts to jerk the whole political to a raising of consciousness minority of the labour movement an increasing important role in the plans of Governments in It could be that the Thatcher Government badly miscalculated over how blatantly it could 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 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 W1V 3DG. Tel: (01) 437 2795.
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It was stopped by
10 but