RED QUEENS ON SCREENS?

Ian Hargreaves takes to task right-wing critics of BBC impartiality

IT WAS nice of Mr Julian Critchley to put the matter so plainly in the Guardian the other day. 'It is axiomatic among the simpler Tories,' he wrote, 'that Britain enjoys the best press in the world and the worst broadcasting.' Most broadcasters, he observed, generated distrust; the BBC, hatred.

Mr Norman Tebbit, who seldom starts second favourite in the plain-speaking stakes, confirmed the point in a carefully nuanced address at Oxford University ear- lier this year. The BBC, he said, had become 'a sunset home for third-rate minds and red queens'.

This is the even-tempered background to the debate on impartiality in broadcasting which has been occasioned by the legisla- tive endeavours of Lord Wyatt of Weeford, a former Labour MP and now columnist for newspapers which mostly purvey the simpler Tory view. Lord Wyatt also stands as something of an expert in these matters, since he spent a part of his early career making television current affairs programmes, although it is stretch- ing the point a touch to state as he does in Who's Who, that he 'began Panorama with Richard Dimbleby in 1955'. He was no doubt a distinguished screen presence at the programmes re-launch in that year.

It is normally wise when approaching a 'media issue' to carry a gas mask. Poison-

ous clouds of windbaggery and crude self- interest masquerading as sonorous policy generally obscure vision. Thus most of the current debate involves Conservative Party extremists, who like to read extreme Tory

opinions, disliking an organ- isation which is not in business to do the same. On the other side, the broadcasters and especially the BBC are allergic to change.

The best you can hope for in such a foggy landscape is a touch of comic relief. My private favourite during the impartial- ity debate concerned the earnest young man from Tory HQ, who expressed a deep state of anxiety about the work of Mr Rik Mayall and in particular his ITV series, The New Statesman, which portrays a Tory politician as lecherous, vain and murder- ous. Such things, he argued, were in- appropriate for a television system bound- ed to the rock of impartiality. He advo- cated either a policy of balance, presum- ably involving an equal number of lecher- ous, vain and murderous Labour MPs, with an SLD member required only to be lecherous, vain or murderous. Actually what he wanted was a more powerful version of Lord Rees-Mogg's Broadcasting Standards Council to make sure such things didn't get on air in the first place. I really must send him tickets for the next London production of Measure for Mea-

'Oh dear! It's the tearn from Hello.' sure.

In truth, the impartiality question is of some importance in broadcasting policy, not so much because of the filigree debate on regulatory mechanism, but because impartiality is at the core of the most important issue facing British broadcast- ing, which is this: as the broadcasting spectrum becomes wider and competition proliferates, what degree of deregulation is appropriate? And given these new condi- tions, what place is there for a publicly funded or otherwise privileged broadcaster committed to the ideals and ambitions of full-time public service broadcasting?

The Government continues to be in a terrible muddle about all of this. It has, wisely, encouraged the opening up of the spectrum, but has actually increased the weight of regulation, even countenancing new powers to regulate 'the best press in the world'.

The BBC is attacked on two counts: that it enjoys an unjust 'poll tax' — type income — an argument whose weight increases as BBC audience share declines — and be- cause the corporation is held to be Labour Party pris. Impartiality as a principle is enshrined in an annexe to the BBC's 1981

licence and agreement which requires it 'to treat controversial subjects with due im-

partiality . . . both in the corporation's

news services and in the more general field of programmes dealing with matters of

public policy'. Critics like Paul Johnson swing both fists at once. 'It is a thoroughly political organisation with a Left-liberal

slant . . . it is wrong that the BBC should have the status and privileges of a national institution and that everyone should pay for it,' he wrote in The Spectator (3 March).

The most surprising aspect of the Right's attack on the BBC, given the ground- breaking work the radical Right has accomplished in some areas, has been its lack of interest in evidence. The tone of the debate is spiteful and self-interested, just as it was half a century ago when the Beaverbrook press campaigned to strangle and then control a powerful new rival. The best evidence generator this generation of Conservative agitators has come up with is the Media Monitoring Unit, which consists of a young man and his pals who parade slanted and slovenly note-taking as reasoned critique. One of the jollier by- products of the Unit's most recent attack

on the BBC's Today programme was to

find Mr Johnson denouncing Mr Brian Redhead and demanding his replacement

with Today's 'acceptable' fellow presenter,

Miss Sue MacGregor. The fact that the Unit found significant left-wing deviance in Miss MacGregor's work appears to have escaped Mr Johnson. With the best will in the world, it is hard to take criticism of this calibre seriously.

More careful research, of the kind car- ried out by Professor Martin Collins and by the BBC's own statistical unit, suggests a more complex picture. In the first place, very few television viewers, when asked, display concern about bias. Only 1 per cent of programmes are judged seriously faulty by more than 5 per cent of viewers and of these malcontents most (15 per cent) are cross because they are bored. Only 5 per cent of the 1 per cent complain of bias or inaccuracy. Equally telling is the fact that among the chattering classes (ABs), almost one in three complaints concerns partiality or accuracy. It is fairly well known that other opinion research, tracked over many years, reveals a public view of the BBC as a Conservative-leaning body, perhaps be- cause it is seen as part of 'the establish- ment'.

The audience of BBC news is also found to be broadly satisfied with what it gets. An important minority, one in five, dissents from the proposition that television news is fairly or very trustworthy. But there is lots of evidence that television is hugely more trusted as a source of straight information and fair judgment than newspapers.

None of this, however, proves the poli- tical composition of the BBC staff one way or another. There is, thank God, no hard evidence to be had, since it is not yet a requirement for British public servants, among whom BBC employees may be numbered, to declare political allegiance on their application forms. BBC people display justified indignation when scrutiny of their political views is proposed. There was thus particular joy to be had when it emerged that the comissioner of a Gallup survey of BBC producers' politics turned out to be none other than the BBC's own Late Show. In the absence of facts, all we have to rely on are the programmes, the measured public response to those prog- rammes and the evidence of one's own eyes and ears. Having just spent three years inside the BBC's news division, I am sorry to report a dull conclusion. It seemed to me that almost everyone who works there belongs to the broadly defined centre ground of public and political opinion, not much different from one's sense of the country as a whole. It may be true that the heartland BBC view of life is institutionally entrenched, as is always the case in large, fairly stable organisations. For what it is Worth, Professor Collins judges the atmos- phere to be 'centre Right'. But of course, the radical Right dislikes the centre Right more than it dislikes Mr Tony Benn.

The radical Right's frustration with the BBC is not unlike its mystification at a public which says it prefers higher taxes to falling welfare standards, but continues to vote Mrs Thatcher into office. To characte- rise an institution which reflects the society from which it springs as 'anti-Conservative' or 'pro-Labour' is either self-delusion or mischief.

The real issue of impartiality is much less tractable than this political knockabout acknowledges. By definition, the most effective antidote to impartiality is the inclusion of as many views, as many relevant facts as possible. The only way to achieve this is to increase the skills and knowledge of those who make the prog- rammes and to give them the right facilities and direction. Most fair-minded people agree that changes under all these headings in the last few years have raised the quality of BBC news and current affairs.

It is thus more likely than it was that pertinent context will be offered in a report on the latest economic figures or the next diplomatic manoeuvre in the Gulf. Which is not to say there are no shortcomings. I recall, for example, one programme's coverage of the Ravenscraig strip mill closure which included expansive reference to the Scottish political dimension, the Westminster response and trade union concerns, but failed to explain the business reasoning which led to the decision in the first place.

There is no doubt that the BBC's historic insouciance towards business and econo- mic matters has reflected a well- documented and deep-rooted ant i- commercial spirit in British society and that it has done damage, though not nearly so much damage as the same virus in Britain's education system. True impartial- ity requires the BBC to do better on these subjects, as it requires numerate and scien- tifically literate coverage of social issues and hard-headed coverage of everything.

As the BBC's market share yields to new competitors, it may be that diversity will deliver naturally what the impartiality prin- ciple prescribes. But, properly understood, due impartiality is the right prescription, even if it does make the simpler Tories cough.

Ian Hargreaves was until recently director of news and current affairs at the BBC and is now deputy editor designate of the Financial Times.