Public and be Damned

Abstract

Surveys show that we nowadays regard broadcasting as our primary provider of information, and in Britain broadcast journalism is a quite different proposition from its print equivalent. Its purpose is not to sell anything, even airtime. Britain's biggest journalistic operation, the BBC, pursues not profit but a tax-funded mission to advance the public weal. The belief that broadcast news is therefore to be trusted more than newspapers ensures that the nation turns to it automatically in times of crisis.

But it is not only Alastair Campbell who considers the BBC to have strayed from its proper path in its dealings with the late doctor. Some of the BBC's Governors have apparently been wondering whether the corporation "should stick to reporting news, instead of trying to make it". Yet broadcast news chiefs have thus become understandably determined to enhance the popular appeal of their output. Endless visual rejigs, an influx of nubile newsreaders and the prioritisation of celebrity gossip bear witness to this ambition. The kind of engagement and sensation which seem to work in print have seemed another obvious way to put bums on sofas. If this has had to mean sacrificing central features of the traditional order, that has been considered a price worth paying.