Following are excerpts from an interesting article written by Stephen Cushion in The Conversation ‘How UK broadcasting’s key principle of impartiality has been eroded over the years’ with focus and excerpts including BBC, Fox News, US fairness principle, Ofcom, GB News, personalities and public confidence.
It is not just the U.K. or the Anglosphere, one would add further issues which include lack of journalistic standards, journalists being replaced by politicians, think tank ‘experts’, influencers and grifters presenting nativist right wing agitprop masquerading as informed analysis; especially talking points and messaging in a negative and repetitive manner to dominate media spaces and preclude advancing positive issues or policies.
Round the Lineker issue, there has been confected outrage from the above cohort on his comments regarding migration policy, Nazi Germany and eugenics based rhetoric of the 1930s, which were misrepresented as a factual allegation. However, many claim it was true anyway i.e. direct links between UK’s (US, Australia, Hungarian & Italian) migration restriction policies, and can be proven.
According to New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, a media assembly line audit by ‘Freedom Works’ of KochNetwork, looked at how their research created an ‘influence’ assembly line including media & lobbying MPs or committees, run campaigns to discredit disappear e.g. climate science or intimidate dissent e.g. refugee advocates.
The research, PR and talking points often come from the same networks and now transnational using similar content, talking points and methods via Koch, Tanton, Murdoch et al and even Russia and Turkey use similar?
How UK broadcasting’s key principle of impartiality has been eroded over the years
March 29, 2023 12.47pm CEST
A word that was bandied about freely in the wake of the Gary Lineker-BBC affair was “impartiality”. Apparently the gold standard of UK broadcasting, it was something that certain critics judged the BBC sports presenter to have breached in his personal social media posts.
Following Lineker’s suspension and subsequent reinstatement, a review of the BBC’s guidelines over its staff members’ use of social media is underway – not for the first time in the broadcaster’s recent history.
The UK has historically required broadcasters to abide by a set of “due impartiality” guidelines set out and policed by the UK’s broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom. These are designed to prevent the kind of partisanship that has long characterised American media.
Yet there is growing evidence UK broadcasters are effectively free to pursue a style of opinionated and partisan journalism familiar to viewers of US broadcast news and current affairs.
The public deserve more serious debate and scrutiny about the impartiality of broadcasters and how they are regulated.
The Foxification of news
In the US, between 1949 and 1987, broadcasters were required to adhere to the fairness doctrine. This helped to ensure reporting of politics and public affairs was broadly balanced.
As I explored in my book, Television Journalism, more opinionated formats in radio and then television news began to slowly emerge after the fairness doctrine was abolished. This was because broadcasters were no longer obliged to reflect different political perspectives.
In 1996, Fox News was launched by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It pursued a highly partisan brand of journalism that favoured conservative and Republican perspectives.
Over successive decades, this “Fox effect” paved the way for more partisanship in the US, with channels such as Newsmax and One American News adopting even more right-wing perspectives and sometimes even propagating conspiracy theories. For example, while Fox News initially questioned Donald Trump’s claims the 2020 presidential election had been rigged, the new hyper-partisan channels tended to legitimise his assertions of electoral fraud.
Foxification of UK broadcast news?
At the turn of the century, concerns about a so-called “Foxification of news” spread across the Atlantic. But a systematic analysis of Sky News and BBC News between 2004 and 2007 showed broadcasters were broadly conforming to rules about “due impartiality”.
Just a decade later, however, new broadcasters such as GB News, UK News, LBC and Times Radio, have pushed the boundaries of the UK’s rules on impartiality.
The new channels tend to deliver more opinionated and partisan journalism. Critics, for example, have highlighted GB News’s late-night opinion-based programming, and drawn attention to the channel’s dubious claims and conspiracy theories.
Enhancing public confidence
Ofcom recently issued a clarification that politicians can present in “non-news” programming outside of election periods. This was defined as programming with “extensive discussion, analysis or interviews with guests – often live – and long-form video reports”.
In the case of GB News, this represents a significant part of its routine output – meaning much of the channel’s airtime is free to adopt a partisan perspective.
If the public is to remain confident in broadcast journalism, it is essential Ofcom is transparent about how it applies editorial standards of impartiality. Public support for impartiality remains high, and research also shows people expect broadcasters to be fair and balanced rather than opinionated and partisan.
Ahead of the next general election, voters need to have confidence not just in the broadcasters that inform them, but in the regulator that polices them.’
For more blogs and article about Conservatives, Koch Network, Media, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Tanton Network and White Nationalism.
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