BBC: FROM AUNTIE TO HARLOT
Broadcasting:
Paul Johnson on the coverage given to IRA terrorists MARGARET Thatcher told the members of the American Bar Association, at their recent conference in London, that the media should agree on a voluntary code to Prevent themselves being exploited by terrorists. So far as Britain is concerned, the problem is comparatively limited. Fleet Street is not a major offender. Individual newspapers have their own internal restric- tions more rules of thumb than formal codes — which appear to work tolerably Well There are few cases in which a national newspaper could reasonably be argued to have assisted terrorists, con- sciously or unconsciously, by its coverage. Newspapers are highly sensitive to reader- reaction in this area, and if one was seen to have given aid and comfort, or a free Platform, to terrorists — even if inadver- tently — the response would be awesome. It is the easiest thing in the world to cancel Your order or stop buying the offending rag.
The difficulty lies with television, though even here the prime offenders are not the news services. David Nicholas, editor of IndePendent Television News, recently confirmed to UK Press Gazette that British broadcasters had agreed a draft code with the Home Office, which was observed, though on an informal basis. What Nicho- las has to say on actual coverage of news events involving terrorists seems to be right and sensible. The real villains are BBC current affairs producers who give IRA terrorist leaders the opportunity to air their viletvs. I say BBC because, although some TV companies have also offended in this respect, it was the BBC which gave the lead. If the BBC agreed or were forced to Impose an absolute ban on such interviews, I have no doubt ITV would be glad to follow suit. , You may ask: why is that what is still taughably called the British Broadcasting ?-orporation, a publicly owned national ?nstitution paid for by our money, should be most ready to aid people who are not °MY enemies of this country but torturers rd mass-murderers of the most loathsome nd? To ask such a question, I am afraid, lbs to betray ignorance of what the BBC has From its foundation in the 1920s toec111e the .1.960s it was in some respects the Persorufication of Britain, its voice and image. It was open to the objection that it was too middle-class, too highbrow, stuffy and moralistic. But it was something; it stood for something; it was a recognisable, tangible entity, with a culture, a code of behaviour, a sense of decency of its own. All that has now gone. The BBC no longer has a personality. It is a decaying bit of nationalised property, run, insofar as it is run at all, in the interests of its employees, as such ruins always are. It has no head, no heart and no soul, and above all no conscience. Religion and patriotism mean nothing to it. It would not lift a palsied finger to defend the British constitution or Parliament. Its attitude to the law is ambivalent. The only, element of law en- forcement it positively supports is the prosecution of those who evade the licence fee.
In these circumstances it is not difficult for a BBC producer in search of notoriety to interview an IRA terrorist and drag the whole ramshackle BBC caravan in his wake. That is what happened with the BBC 1 documentary featuring the IRA 'chief of staff whose transmission has now been postponed after pressure from the Government. Giving Martin McGuinness this free, prime-time opportunity to pre- sent the case for violence was defended by the BBC with its usual combination of naivety, humbug and pseudo-logic: that McGuinness was elected on the Sinn Fein vote to the Northern Ireland Assembly, that he is 'balanced' by another extremist from the Protestant side, that the program- me doesn't give violence a platform but 'exposes' it, and that it is 'extremely informative'.
If these were indeed the real reasons for the programme, the BBC would not have bothered to make it. The truth is that the IRA killers greatly value their access to the BBC, more especially since the BBC has, in the minds of many foolish people, a quasi-official status. An IRA interview on the BBC suggests to many the possibility of an eventual government surrender to ter- rorism. It gives the IRA political, as opposed to criminal, status and hints that its spokesmen are valid negotiating part- ners. It is a huge discouragement to mem- bers of the security forces, whose job is to protect lives and property (including BBC property and personnel) from these thugs. For the IRA killers it is a tremendous boost for morale. Their fury at the prog- ramme's postponement speaks for itself. The decision of the BBC governors to bow to the Government's request was grudging and qualified and the real problem remains unresolved. Within the BBC the atmos- phere of hostility towards the Government is overwhelming. Ministers, by which I mean Mrs Thatcher and the Home Secret- ary in particular, have only themselves to blame. They have funked tackling the problem of the BBC. They have neither placed it in more responsible hands, nor forced it to accept the discipline of market democracy. It is no accident that the terrorists' best friend among the British media is the one institution with a pri- vileged source of income. When Mrs Thatcher and Leon Brittan agreed to raise the BBC licence fee to £58, instead of deciding to phase it out altogether and telling the BBC to go into the market for its sustenance, like every- body else, they invited this kind of con- temptuous response. Now they have land- ed themselves in a mess in which they can easily be misrepresented as censors.
It is worth pointing out, for the attention of the Peacock Committee, that if the BBC had been dependent on ratings-based advertising, and so susceptible to public pressure, it is extremely unlikely that it would have wished to give free air-time to terrorism. As it is, the viewer has no financial leverage over the BBC at all. He cannot cancel his subscription. He cannot transfer to the competition. If he refuses to pay the licence fee in protest, he denies himself legal access to television altogether. Thus the BBC enjoys the har- lot's privilege of power without responsi- bility to anyone. Forcing it into the market is one way of bringing it under moral control.
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