FREEDOM, DUOPOLY AND HUMBUG
The press: Paul Johnson
examines the hypocrisy behind the broadcasting debate
SHOULD the media be regulated? If so how? There are no questions which pro- duce more brazen hypocrisy from those who constitute the political nation in Bri- tain. The humbug is to be found in all parties. In theory everyone subscribes to the principle that the media should be free. In practice all groups want to manage the media in ways which they believe will promote their political aims. The Left is bitter about the press and complacent about broadcasting. The Right is happy about tW press but views 'serious' televi- sion and radio with suspicion sometimes verging bn fury. These perceptions deter- mine the policies of both sides. The Labour Party thinks, with reason, it gets a square deal from television and wants to leave well alone. The Left's line, for public consumption, was neatly put by the Obser- ver this Sunday: 'The BBC-ITV duopoly has served viewers well over the past 30 years by allowing competitive forces to flourish, while restraining the most debas- ing pressures of the market-place.' On the other hand, Labour sees the proprietorial press as overwhelmingly right-wing, is angry about the unpredictable behaviour, under Robert Maxwell, of its once reliable allies, the Mirror papers, and despairs, after the News on Sunday fiasco, of creat- ing its own.
So Labour is moving towards both com- mercial and content restrictions. These will probably include a limit to the number of papers any one person or firm can own, a ban on non-British proprietors (to get at Rupert Murdoch) and the replacement of the Press Council by a statutory body, with powers of punishment, to regulate content. Labour is also toying with the idea, favoured by the unions, of a nationalised printing corporation which would, in effect, enable left-wing papers to be pub- lished at subsidised rates. In addition, of course, the repeal of all the Thatcher trade union reforms, reaffirmed at the recent TUC conference, would once more put the closed-shop print unions, with their own system of editorial censorship, firmly back in the saddle. In theory at any rate the outlook for the freedom of the press under a Labour government would be grim.
By contrast, the Tories are not paranoid about newspapers, except occasionally over security, and are inclined to use even the special monopoly powers which apply to the press very sparingly. Despite what organisatidns like Index on Censorship may say, the press has enjoyed more freedom during the last decade than at any time in our history, while its variety and commercial opportunities have been great- ly expanded by the weakening of restrictive union privileges. Television has also en- joyed greater freedom, but here the Tories are unhappy, believing the duopoly is run, at least at the programme-making level, by people with a constitutional bias not just to the Left but against authority in all its forms. As the broadcasting duopoly enjoys statutory privileges, they feel, quite reasonably, that it ought to be objective and neutral. What they want, then, is a depoliticised broadcasting system. But in nine years they have been unable to agree, even among themselves, on an acceptable way to bring this about.
Even Mrs Thatcher, while clear about the end, has dithered about the means: in fact she is a less resolute reformer on this topic than on any other, except the Nation- al Health Service. Argument has continued throughout this year on what goes into the White Paper, due this autumn, foreshad- owing a huge Broadcasting Bill. The gener- al idea is to erode the power of the existing duopoly, whose character the government now recognises cannot be effectively trans- formed, by deregulating the industry and increasing competion of all kinds. But the Tories have been hampered by the fact that technology has advanced faster and in less predictable ways than they had antici- pated, thus making it exceedingly difficult to frame proposals which combine the three desiderata by (1) dishing the existing television establishment; (2) being com- mercially viable; and (3) being acceptable to the public. The press is full of predic- tions about what the White Paper will contain. But it may be greenish rather than
pure white, and I will not be sure of what government policy actually is until I see the text of the Bill itself. Even then there is no guarantee that the Bill will be enacted in all its details, since there are quite a few backbench Tories who like the duopoly, at least in principle, and the House of Lords is crammed with people who think Britain has 'the best broadcasting system in the world'. What is essential is that Mrs Thatcher herself makes up her mind about what she wants to see happen, because when and if she does so, action will follow, however strong opposition may be. It is her own uncertainty which is at the root of the delays and shifts.
On the analysis it would seem that the Tories are more in favour of media free- dom than the Left, for if both sides are hypocritical, the Tories at least see it as in their interest to give readers and viewers the widest possible choice. They want more papers, networks and stations. However, this general proposition is sub- ject to an important qualification. Although the Tories want to deregulate the commercial aspects of television, and the replacement for the IBA will be a hands- off body like the Cable Authority, they favour increasing control of content in some ways. The great majority of them, led by Mrs Thatcher herself, are quite convinced that screen violence is one cause of real violence, and they were delighted when the Prince of Wales came out on their side last week. Whether through the Rees-Mogg body or something stronger, the government, reflecting back-bench opinion, is quite determined to reduce television's violent output and in the pro- cess will reduce the sex content too. Equally, government and Tory backben- chers alike, while happy to leave the press alone in most respects, will not long put up with the intrusions of the tabloids into private lives. It requires only one or two more shocking cases for action to follow.
On violence and privacy the media lobbies will put intense pressure on opposi- tion leaders to resist government regula- tion in the name of freedom. But while they may get middle-class sub-intellectuals like Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown to make squawking noises — David Owen is too wily a bird — it is most unlikely that the bulk of opposition MPs will fight. They know from their constituency soundings that, irrespective of what programmes are watched and newspapers bought, the great majority of ordinary voters would favour some government bashing of the creature that Augusta, the Evening Standard's car- toon tot, calls Sexan Villance. For if the political nation is hypocritical about the media, so in a rather different way is the real nation. Do the British favour freedom of the media? Of course they do. Would they also support the proposition 'The power of the media has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished'? Of course they would.
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