Report first,talk later…

Our media is increasingly governed by the desire to be noticed rather than be accurate, and all the poorer for it argues RICHARD SAMBROOK

WE ARE DROWNING in opinion. From TV panel shows masquerading as news, to deliberately provocative talk radio, to newspaper columnists seeking attention to social media argument eliding into abuse. Some of it, of course, offers insight and expands perspectives. Much of it entertains. But too little of it informs or educates – those other pillars of public service media which seek to strengthen democracy and expand the public space. Too much of today’s media is focused on generating profitable heat rather than more complex light. It’s an attention economy where being noticed rather than being right breeds success.

How did we get here? Largely through the incentives of a highly competitive commercial digital media. First the explosion of cable and satellite TV in the 1980s. The loosening of regulation with the scrapping of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 allowed a new raft of largely right-wing, highly opinionated talk radio and then TV to profitably emerge. For them, talk was cheap and easy but reporting was expensive and hard. Other countries followed suit.

The UK still has broadcast regulation to deliver political impartiality, but the regulator Ofcom has relaxed its position in support of allowing greater freedom of speech. So for example, LBC radio has successfully met its regulatory requirement for impartiality by offering a range of highly opinionated shows from across the political spectrum; new TV services followed with presenters like Nigel Farage, Dan Wootton or Mark Steyn on GB News or Piers “I’m an opinion machine” Morgan on TalkTV.

BBC news reporter Emily Maitlis interviews a member of Extinction Rebellion. Maitlis recently accused the BBC of “both-sidesism”

CREDIT: Penelope Barritt/Alamy

Increased competition has led to shriller broadcasting in the hope of attention. This has been exacerbated by the internet and social media where clicks mean profit. Clips from low audience TV shows can get millions of online views, and greater revenue, if the headline presses the right emotional buttons.

In turn we have seen the rise of journalists as celebrities commanding big salaries and their own fanbase. The recent departure of some of the BBC’s biggest names to talk radio and podcasting offers them a higher personal profile and salary. The BBC’s former political editor Andrew Marr said he was looking forward to “getting his voice back” as he left for his own LBC talk show – although in truth he says little such a skilled broadcaster couldn’t say at the BBC.

These programmes feed off the polarised politics of the moment – what one commentator has called the “footballification of politics” where it doesn’t matter if your side is right or wrong: what matters is tribal loyalty. And we have the rise of identity politics and advocacy, particularly online, stirring deep emotions and non-negotiable positions of principle.

In this colourful, noisy, disputatious environment – with a mushrooming of perspectives and a host of new digital formats – a commitment to facts and evidence can appear fusty and is frequently misunderstood.

The BBC’s former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis left with a sideswipe at her employer in her McTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, saying BBC impartiality too often amounted to “both-sidesism” – offering a false equivalence in the name of balance. Others have suggested personal political views should either be declared or should disqualify individuals from impartial reporting. But such verdicts are based on common misunderstanding about what those terms mean and take little notice of what the public want from news providers.

Research by The Reuters Institute at Oxford University suggests polarisation among news audiences is relatively low (particularly outside the USA) and that, although news consumers recognise they are often drawn to partial news and opinion, all age groups spoke of the importance of impartial journalism. Focus group participants said they wanted a reliable baseline of factual reporting from which they could go off to explore opinions elsewhere in places where they expect to find them – social media, blogs, newspaper columns.

Many confusions cloud this debate. First, the widespread view that impartiality means false equivalence or “both-sidesism” or failing to call out the truth of a situation. Although there are some egregious examples of news programmes falling into that trap, it is not the benchmark for impartiality. They are examples of weak or poor journalism. Impartiality does not prevent the “calling out” of an issue – but it does require showing the rigorous evidence that sits behind that judgment; gathering evidence being harder work and a lot more expensive than a talking head in a studio.

Neither does impartiality mean hiding personal opinions or a pretence you don’t hold any. It is the exact opposite of that. Impartiality is a professional discipline designed precisely to take account of personal bias and raise journalism above it. (Which is also, of course, harder work than letting your personal views run free.) Impartiality is not about the individual, it is about the process and method – something which news providers have been too reticent to explain.

In any case, disclosure of personal views – the frequent call for personal transparency – is not an answer and certainly cannot disqualify anyone from reporting. If personal views and experience are crucial to legitimacy, should only women report the abortion debate? Should that be only women who’ve had an abortion or only those who haven’t? Their different views are crucial to the debate, but the independent discipline of reporting and the martialling of evidence, including a range of views, should come first.

I recently spoke to a young Asian journalist who asked how they could be expected to cover racism impartially – or genocide? They assumed impartiality meant a “for and against” false equivalence. It doesn’t. First-hand reporting and evidence enables strong, committed, impartial journalism. Show, don’t just tell.

Simon Schama once suggested that “the certainty of an ultimately observable, empirically verifiable truth” was dead. He was writing about history of course. I am less pessimistic.

There are many kinds of truth – literal, metaphorical, artistic, relative or personal – but we should start with facts. My football team lost 1-0 is a fact. Why they lost can be the subject of debate. But the score is not an opinion. So let’s start with facts. Report first, talk later.

We need a greater emphasis on a journalism of verification, not just assertion – let alone assumption. As the US scholar Tom Rosenstiel put it: “If journalists replace a flawed understanding of objectivity by taking refuge in subjectivity and think their opinions have more moral integrity than genuine inquiry, journalism will be lost.” X