NOT EVERYONE LIKES REDHEADS
The media: for Paul Johnson it is not BBC bias that hurts
but having to pay for it
YOU have to hand it to Woodrow Wyatt: for an old codger in his seventies who has been heavily involved in politics, especially at its media end, since 1945, he is still unmatched at stirring things up. Some of us will remember that it was Wyatt (and John Freeman) who successfully uncovered communist skulduggery in what was then the Electricians' Trade Union. He got a lot of abuse from the Left but he proved his point in devastating fashion. By giving publicity to the Media Monitoring Report on anti-government bias in the BBC Radio 4 Today programme he has once more put the BBC in the dock. I have been greatly entertained by the highly predictable re- sponses to this ploy. John Birt was prompt- ly trotted out to produce an outraged and (since he was miserably aware he had a poor case) unconvincing reply. The Labour Party publicity machine rushed to his aid, as they should: for Labour, Today is definitely 'one of ours'.
The prints were crowded, the air was loud with pious left-wing voices testifying to the programme's objectivity and journa- listic integrity. The Observer characteristi- cally came up with a conspiracy theory, 'The New Hounding of the BBC'. The Wyatt article was only 'superficially' a criticism of BBC standards. It had 'all the hallmarks of a subtler operation'. In fact 'the Tory Right is laying the groundwork for adverts on the Beeb'. If, which heaven forbid, there were a right-wing equivalent to Tiny Rowland's sunday, no doubt it would be accusing the Left of mounting an orchestrated offensive against Alastair Burnet, including knocking him down on a dark night. The Independent imprudently allowed its cloven left-wing hoof to show in a Pilgerish editorial, evidently written in a state of strong emotion, which accused Wyatt of wait for it — `MacCarthyism'. The Sunday Correspondent, I should add, managed to make the same points far more plausibly and without resorting to misrep- resentation and abuse. Various columnists added their twopenny-worth in exactly the coinage you would expect.
The most sophisticated comment, I thought, came from Simon Jenkins in the Sunday Times. Yes, he argued, Today was biased against the Government and sub- jected ministers to rough handling. But that was acceptable since ministers are paid to defend their policies under attack and the BBC, in its own way, did a better job than Parliament in supplying the necessary cross-examination. Where the BBC was at fault, Jenkins added, was in its 'creeping bias against comprehension', instanced by its unprofessional handling of both the Mandela release and the ambulance dis- pute. Well: we needn't go into that here, but it is worth pointing out that for the BBC to harass ministers about their poli- cies would be more acceptable if the Corporation's news bulletins actually re- ported these policies in the first place. Usually the BBC (and it is not alone) begins an item with a `Labour-MPs-slam- new-health-plan' lead, so you never hear what the plan is until everyone has had a go at it, if indeed then. Next day, the press takes the same follow-up approach, and defends itself by claiming the government's proposals 'were on the telly last night'. But they weren't, as it happened.
Like most people not on the Left, I find Brian Redhead of Today a pain in the morning, though not so much because of his left-wing views, which are obvious enough, but because of the sneering, disbe- lieving tone he slips into his voice when- ever someone voices an opinion he and his chums don't share. Indeed, I am sick of his 'We're involved in a tug-of-love over the money. voice altogether and the way this wealthy, middle-class trendy hangs onto his pseudo- plebeian accent by the skin of its last glottal stop. By contrast I find Sue MacGregor's voice one of the best things on BBC Radio today and I have noticed that, when interviewing, she genuinely seeks to elicit information rather than follow a predeter- mined pattern of point-scoring. She also conveys the impression that her interest in news is not confined to the party-political stuff which has always dominated this tunnel-vision programme, and is thus clos- er to that of the ordinary listener. If MacGregor were not a woman, working for an organisation which still seems to have an old-fashioned prejudice against her sex, she would long ago have displaced Redhead at the front of this programme: perhaps that is a change the BBC should now make.
That people should argue about the BBC's slant and voice their complaints is natural: the public not only pays for the BBC but is forced to do so. This particular form of poll tax is far more objectionable than the new community charge because whereas we can all vote out of office a bad council, we have absolutely no say in the BBC which is run by a self-perpetuating elite recruited mainly, as we now know, from among Guardian readers. It is pro- tected from public control by a charter modelled on that of the old East India Company. As a 1920 set-up incorporating 16th-century notions of privilege, the BBC is perhaps more in need of fundamental reform than any other institution in the country. Mrs Thatcher has funked doing it. When she had been in office two years I accused her of being soft on the BBC and she responded with wrath; but it was true then and it is still true now, after 11 years of power. She believed, against all the evidence, that palliatives like sending in Dukey Hussey would produce fairness. Mr Hussey has done his best but it is impossi- ble to de-politicise the BBC. It is a thoroughly political organisation with a Left-liberal slant, as is inevitable in a nationalised industry financed by tax- payers' money. I don't mind this as I am all in favour of a varied media. But it is wrong that the BBC should have the status and privileges of a national institution and that everyone should pay for it. Sooner or later a litigious fellow is going to go to court on the issue of whether he should be forced to pay a poll tax to support a body which habitually advocates not only political but moral views abhorrent to him. But before that the BBC should start preparing to abandon its role of kept mistress and become an honest woman. If it truly values its independence and is not just fond of the soft, easy option (like most prostitutes), the BBC should go by the old slogan, 'Clean living is the only safeguard.' And 'clean', in this case, means earning it in the open market, just like all the rest of us in the media.
Previous page
