BARONS, BOFFINS AND VALUES
that unions get too much coverage and science too little
WHAT is news? To a great extent it is what the consensus within the national newspaper confraternity decides is news (television tends to follow suit), and that decision often reflects traditional attitudes and values which are now out of date. For instance, take the annual conference of the TUC. This week-long occasion is still treated by the media as a major political occasion — indeed, occurring as it does in the first week of September, as the real start of the political year. Major news organisations send large teams of reporters to cover it. This year there were about 1,500 representatives of the press and television in Brighton (as against 1,000 delegates). Live coverage and extensive summaries take up many hours of televi- sion time. Even tabloids allocate one or even two pages daily to reporting the debates, and there is a general assumption that certain 'key' votes, rather arbitrarily determined from year to year, are of critical importance and rate front-page treatment.
In fact what the TUC does, let alone what it discusses and how it votes at its annual gathering, is now of little consequ- ence. Individual conferences of certain big unions, such as the engineers or the electri- cians, are probably more important in influencing what actually happens in indus- try, and these are scarcely reported at all. Even in its palmy days, the TUC never had much clout. When British advisers were recreating German trade unionism in 1945-8 they deliberately invested the TUC equivalent there with great constitutional and financial power over member unions. Alas, we could not do as much for ourselves! The TUC, lacking real disciplin- ary authority tends, rather, to endorse whatever follies its member unions (min- ers, NGA, for example) commit for them- selves, and is thus dragged in their wake. Its debates are 95 per cent predictable and its votes hardly ever matter — just as well, since the Congress often passes two contra- dictory motions or one which is deliberate- ly ambiguous.
The non-importance of the TUC has become more marked in recent years. Since 1979 it has been excluded almost of government. Even in theory it speaks for less than half Britain's employed work- ers, and its fading voice inevitably reflects the decline of trade unionism as a whole. For half a century the power of British trade unions depended essentially on the threat or use of the strike weapon. The Thatcher laws have effectively broken it. Strikes have fallen to the low levels of the mid-1930s, and the two most notable of recent years, the miners' strike and Wap- ping, have both been obvious failures. We still talk of union leaders as 'barons', but the fact that they cannot bring their mem- bers out on strike, at any rate to much purpose, has reduced their status; they are now scarcely baronets, or even knights. In the event of Neil Kinnock winning an election and restoring their legal privileges, their fortunes may revive, but for the moment few care what they think, say or indeed do. Even their names are barely known. How many Spectator readers, for instance, can say who has taken Terry Duffy's place at the AUEW, or David Basnett's at GMBATU? In short, are their proceedings worth more extensive report- ing than those of, say, the Confederation of British Industry or the Institute of Directors?
Yet, such being the conservatism of the British media, the decline of the unions is 'I keep thinking it's Mardi Gras.' hardly yet reflected in TUC coverage. True, the TUC this year made few front- page splashes. But this was due mainly to a sensational multi-murder at the beginning of the week and a major hijack at the end. Without these two deplorable events we may be sure the pseudo-debates and non- decisions of the Brothers would have made dramatic headlines. Such is the media. Its very sloth inhibits revision of news values. Newspapers and television companies love fixed events which, by tradition, generate `news'. They can get all their people and equipment there, then sit back and wait for it to happen. The pages and the air-time are arranged in advance and ready to be filled. Often there are advanced texts of speeches. The behind-the-scenes haggles, the public debates and the card-votes — all pretty predictable, if the truth be told — can easily be built up into nice, manage- able dramas. The reporters are not exactly idle but there are plenty of them to share the chores and it is an agreeable and satisfying way of spending a week by the seaside. Covering the TUC on this scale costs newspapers and networks enormous sums of money, which can in no way be justified either by reader/viewer interest or the intrinsic significance of the happening, but it is money which has long since been built into budgets and thus discounted by immemorial custom.
This year, as sometimes happens, the TUC coincided with the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advance- ment of Science. The contrast in the coverage of the two events is instructive. Some of the quality dailies do attempt to provide summaries of a few British Ass. papers, but the many important findings announced at the meeting are seldom treated as front-page news, unless they can be provided with a gimmicky angle. Yet, whereas the information imparted at the TUC — as opposed to the abusing, tirading and adjectival cacophony — is minimal and seldom new, the British Ass. produces masses of fascinating material covering the entire spectrum of the exact sciences. Most of this never reaches the public, except in specialised journals.
It strikes me as odd, and deplorably British, that at the end of the 20th century our media devotes far more space and time to the ritual doings of a bunch of old- fashioned trade union leaders, practising a craft which is clearly in irreversible decline, than to the most important meeting of scientists in the year. A national newspap- er with a team of industrial reporters rarely has more than one full-time science corres- pondent. Even television, which has such unprecedented means to present science to a popular audience, is reluctant to treat it as news. It is a sobering thought that the British public was better informed about the latest scientific developments in Victo- rian times than it is today. We all know who Norman Willis is, but who is the living successor to Darwin?
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