1 MARCH 1986, Page 18

THE ALTERNATIVE TO CENSORSHIP

Broadcasting: limit sex and violence

MOST of the debates of principle in present-day society come down to the question of authority. In every sphere of life authority is being defied and often it does nothing to earn respect by its feeble- ness and pusillanimity. Broadcasting is an outstanding case. The Prime Minister warned the BBC and ITV a fortnight ago that if they did not act decisively to reduce the quantity of violence they transmit, public disquiet would force Parliament to act for them. Winston Churchill's Bill to bring television within the scope of the Obscene Publications Act is the direct and inescapable consequence of the failure by the broadcasting authorities to control their programme producers. Television is like the City. It is difficult and invidious to impose strict controls, and nobody wants to do it. But if the internal watchdogs prove themselves incapable of containing the skulduggery, then public opinion will force the politicians to act.

Violence and sex on television are not two separate debates but one. The Lord Chief Justice pointed out last week that the courts were now having to deal with cases of rape which, for their combination of violence and perverse sex, were without precedent. Mary Whitehouse, whose orga- nisation watches the courts as well as television, has been trying for some time to draw the attention of the broadcasters to this fact, and to the further fact that some of the worst cases of sexual violence gang rapes, for instance — are committed by the sort of young people most addicted to television. The BBC brass have always tried to present her as a puritanical censor, but what she is mainly concerned with is reducing the amount of cruelty and de- humanisation of the vulnerable which occurs in real life. Many broadcasters argue that television violence does not influence actual behaviour, and the BBC has just appointed a carefully selected committee of inquiry which is widely ex- pected to endorse such views. But most people think otherwise and this is one of those issues where ordinary folk are more likely to be right than academic specialists. Indeed, broadcasters themselves concede the influence argument when they do want to ban something, such as smoking or the merest whiff of 'racism'. In any case the phenomenal success of television advertis- ing, much of it designed to change patterns of behaviour by playing on the emotions, gives the lie to the assertion that there is no connection between what people see on the box and what they do.

The connection is likely to be strongest among young, ill-educated males (and, increasingly, females) who are the section of the population most addicted to televi- sion and most prone to violence. But violence, included sexual violence, is also growing among schoolchildren, who also watch a great deal of television. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the recent Star survey, which monitored violence on television in the week starting 25 January, was that it dealt with the five hours between the end of school at 4 p.m. and the official IBA-BBC end of `children's viewing' at 9 p.m., supposedly a protected period. The appalling list of violent inci- dents compiled by the Star shows that internal broadcasting codes do not work.

The codes do not work for the simple reason that breaches of them are not punished. There was an illuminating exam- ple last summer when the Home Secretary was forced to intervene to stop the BBC showing an interview which placed the IRA in a favourable light. The IRA perpe- trate the outstanding violent acts of our time, and for the BBC to give any kind of platform to their views shows that its attitude towards violence in real life is, to say the least, ambivalent. The chairman of the BBC governors later announced that there had been flagrant breaches of the Corporation's code governing the making and scheduling of such programmes. But was anyone disciplined? The only punish- ment inflicted was on the unfortunate Leon Brittan, who in his later incarnation as Trade Secretary was given some rough handling by the BBC during the piffling Westland affair. The truth is, the television authorities are much too afraid of the disapproval or hostility of production staff to make their codes effective. Even in the recent Rough Justice case, when two BBC reporters were the subject of an unpre- cedented rebuke by the Lord Chief Justice, the BBC imposed only minor penalties --- and this response, feeble as it was, aroused the fury of the producers. What use are codes if those in charge lack the resolution to enforce them?

The Prime Minister's warning and the Churchill Bill have aroused some extrava- gant responses. In a preposterous article in the Observer, Michael Grade asserted that to bring television within the scope of the existing law would 'throw out the thriving cultural baby with Mrs Whitehouse's dirtY bathwater' and establish her and her fol- lowers as 'arbiters of artistic taste in Great Britain'. What he calls 'the creative com- munity' would be 'spending most of their time preparing for litigation' and `the whole of the artistic world' would be `sweP`, into a Black Maria'. Can he really believe this rubbish? John Mortimer in the Times was not much better. The Bill, he said, was `an insult to the public', an affront to Magna Carta. Far from being insulted, most people will consider it right that television corn- panies should be subject to the law 11.0 anyone else. If television bosses 10 Michael Grade are genuinely afraid of the,. proposed legal provisions — and much 01 the indignation sounds pretty synthetic t° me — then the remedy lies in their .ovir_ hands. They can ensure that televisor s own internal codes work to the satisfaction of the public. That will mean showing 3 much stronger sense of responsibility, and a much greater willingness to make them- selves unpopular with 'the creative coin munity', than anyone at the top of the a or ITV has demonstrated. In short, the answer to censorship is leadership.