ACCESSORY TO RIOT
Broadcasting:
Paul Johnson finds television
guilty of encouraging violent crime
THE recent riots in Birmingham and Liverpool, and the far more serious one in Tottenham, where a policeman was mur- dered, firearms used and a certain degree of political organisation seems to have been present, raise important questions about the relationship between television and mass violence. These questions fall into two categories. First, to what extent (if at all) does television provoke or help to promote such violence, not so much in general, but in the circumstances of Britain today? Second, what is the proper profes- sional relationship between television re- porters and producers, and those who participate in, advocate or organise such violence?
On the first point, the answer must be to some extent a matter of opinion. Most people accept, as a general proposition, that there is some connection between imaginative violence on television and actual violent behaviour in society; they take it as axiomatic that a great deal of television violence promotes the demora- lisation of people, especially the young. I am sure this is correct; but I would add that the critical aspect is the moral context in which television violence is presented. I do not believe that the ritual violence of adventure stories, in which good and evil are sharply differentiated, and violence is shown either as the work of evil men or the justified retribution of lawful society, is corrupting. What is dangerous in the im- aginative use of violence on television is its presentation without a moral context, when violence is seen as aimless, habitual, inevitable or even, from time to time, commendable. It has to be sadly admitted that many children and adolescents watch- ing television today, often from one-parent families, are virtually without any moral education at all. Television is their mentor and guide; and if television presents vio- lence in an amoral context, the likelihood is that such youngsters will be encouraged to practise it.
If imaginative television violence pre- sented without a condemnatory moral framework is corrupting, it is even more perilous to present actual violence on television in an amoral context, let alone an immoral one. This brings me to the present crisis. Day after day, for a whole month this summer, British television, and the BBC in particular, presented scenes of violent rioting from South Africa not only without a context of moral reprobation but in a deliberate and consistent context of implicit moral approval. The television screen, as it were, told youngsters who were watching it: These scenes were made inevitable by the oppression suffered by the blacks; they cannot help themselves; what they are doing is natural, even justi- fied. This impression was reinforced by an endless series of one-sided interviews with Bishop Tutu and his like. The message to young blacks in Britain given by our television this summer was simple and overwhelming: if you do not get what you consider your rights, you are entitled to riot for them. What we are discussing, moreover, is not only newsreels of South African blacks assaulting heavily defended police lines, but of mobs burning alive fellow blacks, even children. I believe that this nightly presentation of such atrocious crimes, in a dubious or even commenda- tory moral context, was a direct cause of the recent riots here. We must not, there- fore, be surprised that teenage boys should now be accused of hacking a policeman to death. In my view British television, which in addition frequently presents the police in a hostile manner, is an accessory before the fact.
To come to the second issue, is television also an accessory after the fact? The right of television networks to interview terror- ists, and to allow them to put their case for 'You're honoured. Last week I was doing this to the Cabinet.' murder on our screens, is already a matter of hot debate, but so far it has been discussed almost entirely in the context of Ulster. What we are now witnessing are furtive moves by television to present rioters, and supporters of rioters, in a morally ambiguous context. I leave on one side interviews with people like Bernie Grant in support of violence: that is princi- pally a political issue which will have to be dealt with pretty quickly. I was struck, rather, by a BBC interview with a black girl who claimed that a mass of police had broken into her home to arrest a member of her family. The BBC filmed her with her back to the camera to hide her identity. Why this was necessary was not explained. The implication, of course, was that the police inspired such terror that a black girl who criticised them could not afford to be recognised.
More serious, however, was an ITV interview with two black youths who said they had taken part in the Tottenham riot. Both had jobs: they did not riot because they were deprived or unemployed, but because they enjoyed it. Again, ITV filmed them with their backs to the camera. What I would like to know is this. These two young men were guilty, on their own admission, of criminal behaviour. Does ITN know their names? Have these names been communicated to the police? If not, why not? And what view does the Independent Broadcasting Authority take of this episode?
Journalists should understand that, in law, they have exactly the same duties and responsibilities as any other citizens. There is no analogy whatever between a journal- ist and a priest or a doctor or even a lawyer. They cannot plead a relationship of confidentiality, as with a penitent or pa- tient or client. If they know a serious offence has been committed, and they can help in apprehending its perpetrator, they are bound to do so. Under the Criminal Law Act, 1967, the distinction between principal and accessory has virtually vanished. All who aid, abet, counsel or procure the commission of any offence are liable as principal offenders. A journalist who deliberately conceals from the police evidence which would lead to the arrest and conviction of someone guilty of a serious offence could find himself or her- self in a very serious plight. A trade union boss who instructs his members to refuse reasonable co-operation with the police may be liable to a charge of obstructing the course of justice. The defence that journal- ists need to 'protect their sources' is woolly-minded nonsense and of course has no basis in law. It can never be a journal- ist's professional duty to conceal a crime or protect a criminal. I look to the IBA and the BBC Board of Governors to see to it that their networks obey the law, in this as in all other respects. If these bodies are at all hesitant, then Mr Douglas Hurd and Mrs Thatcher, who called last week on all of us to beat the riot disease, must take action.
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