IMPARTIALITY IN TELEVISION NEWS: PROFITABILITY VERSUS PUBLIC SERVICE

Abstract

Within public service broadcasting systems, journalists are generally required by law to be impartial. On the other hand, newspaper journalists, however much they may personally believe in the value of impartiality, can find themselves working for a publication whose political partisanship is one of its main selling points. Indeed, one of the main arguments for impartiality in broadcasting is that it counterbalances the partiality of much of the press. This is most certainly the case in Britain, where the press is not simply partisan but, historically, has always been heavily skewed to the right. None the less, in recent years there have been a number of calls for the repeal of the impartiality regulations in broadcasting, for three main reasons. The first is that ever since the partial ‘de-regulation’ of British television ushered in by the 1990 Broadcasting Act, and the consequent arrival of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB as a major player, there has been a massive increase in the number of channels. Here the argument runs that, since audiences are now able to choose from a wide range of programmes, the content regulations necessary when news was produced only by the BBC and ITN are no longer appropriate. Unsurprisingly, this line is frequently taken by newspapers whose owners would like to be able to broadcast programmes as politically and ideologically partisan as their newspapers. The most important of these is Rupert Murdoch, who has made no secret of the fact that he would like to be able to turn the currently impartial Sky News into the UK equivalent of the far from impartial Fox News. The second factor is research carried out by the BBC and Ofcom (a regulatory body covering both telecommunications and broadcasting, which was created by the Communications Act 2003) which consistently shows that viewing gures for news and current affairs programmes amongst the young, the working class and theminority ethnic communities are relatively low. As one of the principles of public service broadcasting laid down in that Act is that there should be ‘a suitable quantity and range of high quality and original programmes for children and young people’, and as another is that there should be ‘a sufficient quantity of programmes that reflect the lives and concerns of different communities and cultural interests and traditions within the United Kingdom’, it thus appears that the public service broadcasters are not adequately fulfilling their remit in terms of audience reach. One suggestion for reaching these ‘disconnected’ sections of the population is to offer them more ‘opinionated’ news and current affairs programmes. The third factor concerns wider political and ideological changes which may have rendered the impartiality regulations not simply redundant but counter-productive. Traditionally, impartiality was thought to be achieved by balancing the views of the main parties on the issues of the day as perceived by Westminster. Today, however, for many people, for example those concerned with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, animal rights, climate change and so on, the play of forces within Parliament no longer constitutes what they regard as politics. As Damian Tambini and Jamie Cowling explain:Impartiality regulation in the UK has traditionally been highly focussed on party balance and the formal institutions of democracy. As a result, we are ill-prepared to cope with the complexity of politics in the new century, and the institutions of impartiality regulation run the risk of becoming irrelevant or, worse, obliging journalists to focus on ritualised formal politics when the real story, and the real challenge for public information, is elsewhere. (2002: 84).