Television
Real life
Richard Ingrams
The long television holiday is beginning and regulars like Esther are (thank God) coming to the end of their seasons. LWT's Weekend World is also going into cold storage, once again prompting the question why regular current affairs programmes should ever be 'rested'. After all, if a television company considers it has a duty to comment on the issues of the day this is surely something that has to be done all the year round. We would all be jolly annoyed if the Daily Telegraph ceased to come out for two or three weeks in the summer.
Mr Walden's excellent programme was replaced on Sunday by the first of a series produced by Granada's Brian Lapping, portentously titled The State of the Nation. Last year there was a similar Granada symposium involving selected bores discussing the British economy in a large country house. This time the world of journalism was being scrutinised. A group of experienced Fleet Street and television personnel were put round a table and cross examined about privacy by a Perry-Masonfigure from Harvard University, a bow-tied law professor called Arthur Miller, who paced up and down asking them how they would treat certain hypothetical stories, e.g. a High Court judge is known to be taking cocaine would they publish? Few of those present were inclined to agree with the opinion of the Blessed Arianna Stassinopoulos that 'there are a lot of things that the public simply has no right to know', and on the whole it was quite an interesting debate, with the editor of the Daily Express once again showing that he a natural television star who is wasting his time in the Street of Shame. Unfortunately the producer, the earnest and well intentioned Lapping, drew back from examining how the media have treated real life stories involving the privacy issues. The Thorpe case is a perfect examPle, and it involved many of those seated round the Granada table. The whole saga bad been investigated very thoroughly by the BBC who in the end decided not to shove' their film. Harold Evans, who was also taking part in the discussion, set out defend Thorpe's privacy with the ironic consequence, as we now realise of bringing Bessell in as a witness for the prosecution. William Deedes's sister paper the Sunda:Y Telegraph made an offer to Bessell for his story, to be bumped up in the event of Thorpe's conviction. A discussion of the rights and wrongs of all these matters following the end of the trial, of course would have made a fascinating programme. But it would never get on the air, partly for the same reason which invalidated many of the brave 'publish and be damned' sentiments uttered by Lapping s assembled worthies, namely that if all 'explosive' story is involved the journalists and in some cases even the Editors do not have the last word. When it comes to the crunch it is the likes of Lord Hartwell and Ian Trethowan who decide. And when did you last see Lord Hartwell on the telly? Thanks to the fiddlings of my restless and ingenious daughter I am now able to get both London Weekend and Southern on inY new television set. Last Friday I was thus able briefly to sneer at Clive Jenkins who was making an ass of himself on LWT in the company of Anna Raeburn on a programme called A Question of Sex. It is surelY not too much to ask that people like Anna Raeburn who want to pontificate on the subject should confine their observations to magazines such as Forum and not come on the television screen. The studio audience was obviously as embarrassed and appalled as I was by the facetiousness and vulgarity of the exercise. A much better programme called Opinions Unlimited was in the meantinie being shown on Southern. Though the for: mat is shamelessly cribbed from the BBC s Any Questions it is quite refreshing to sce some kind of democratic debate going 011 even if the questioners are rather obsessed with such matters as what to do about vandals and whether National Service should be brought back.
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