By Callum MacRae
On Wednesday 12th October Manchester set the tone for what is sure to be a lively, interesting, and productive string of workshops and events across the country over the coming weeks. The inaugural event of the national Real Media Tour saw students, activists and journalists of all stripes come together for an evening of talks on the future of the BBC, the world’s oldest and largest national broadcasting organisation.
The evening kicked off with Tom Mills, lecturer at Aston University and author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service, providing the historical context and describing the contemporary situation of the BBC. Mills began by emphasising the importance of the BBC to any progressive, reformist approach to the British media by pointing out that despite the considerable power and influence of private media moguls, it is still the BBC that is the UK’s most trusted news source. Mills then highlighted the BBC’s historical role and structure as a national institution which, despite its avowed aspirations of impartiality and public funding, has nevertheless always been subject to considerable governmental interventions and control. Although the late sixties and seventies saw the emergence of pockets of more dissident and critical reportage, this trend was decisively reversed during the Thatcher years – with the government forcing resignations amongst the governing body, overseeing the marketisation of the BBC’s internal funding structures, and forging links with neo-liberal think tanks that caused a fundamental shift in the BBC’s economics department towards the neo-liberal, pro-business position that it holds to this day. You can watch Tom’s talk below.
Mills’ incisive and insightful opening speech was followed by investigative journalist and Real Media co-founder, Kam Sandhu. Sandhu followed Mills’ lead in emphasising the extent of governmental influence over the BBC – pointing out that 75% of statistics used in BBC reporting come directly from the government. After highlighting extremely worrying trends within the BBC towards favouring ‘top-down reporting’ using press releases and stories leaked by professional politicians over ‘bottom-up reporting’ through independent investigation, Sandhu offered a number of useful recommendations for potential reforms for a more progressive national broadcaster. Amongst these suggestions Sandhu spoke of the importance of moving beyond focusing on the traditional media such as daily newspapers, and the possibility of cooperating with and providing funding to independent news sources and investigative journalists.
Next up was Des Freedman of the Media Reform Coalition (MRC). Again we heard the idea that despite the very real place for the public provision of media in a democratic, egalitarian society, the BBC in its current form systematically privileges pro-business, pro-war, Conservative, and Westminster voices at the expense of genuine political pluralism. Freedman cited shocking statistics uncovered by the MRC showing that in major news bulletins the BBC gave twice as much air time to Corbyn’s critics as to his supporters in their reporting of the recent Labour leadership election – a study that prompted the BBC to dismiss the MRC as a ‘vested interest group’ despite omitting to dispute the findings of their study. Freedman went on to outline a vision for progressive action for the future, a vision that included a BBC free of government influence over appointments to the governing body and a BBC bold enough to resist government cuts and amendments to funding processes, before exhorting the room to put pressure on the BBC through issuing complaints about bias in reporting. You can watch Des’ talk here.
Following Freedman we heard from Aaron Bastani, journalist and co-founder of Novara Media. Bastani began by pointing to two significant shifts in the socio-economic landscape around the BBC in recent years: the increasing disconnect between the BBC’s outlook and the general feeling in the country at large; and the demise of the daily print newspaper as an economically viable enterprise. Bastani suggested that this landscape presents both a challenge and an opportunity for a potentially progressive national broadcaster and news provider. Four concrete policy suggestions were given to show how this might be achieved: contestable funding for news and current affairs; restricting the right to hold equity in UK media companies to UK tax payers; subsidising and encouraging the growth of local media; and radically democratising the funding process. Bastani also emphasised the importance of engaging journalists themselves as workers who have seen drastic drops in wages and working conditions to raise support for these proposals. You can watch Aaron’s talk here.
Offering some closing remarks, the room then heard from Real Media’s Tom Barlow, who offered a fresh perspective on the discussion by highlighting the BBC’s failure to live up to its responsibility to fairly represent the diversity of the British people. Barlow pointed out that despite a growing BME population in Britain, the number of BME actors in BBC programming has fallen significantly in recent years. Barlow went on to speculate that the BBC has, particularly with regards to the recent rise of UKIP, also failed to assume its responsibility as not just a passive observer of public opinion, but often an active influence upon it. Noting severe proportional imbalances in air time afforded to UKIP when compared to the Greens in the years before their rise to electoral success, Barlow made a convincing case for the BBC’s complicity in UKIP’s recent growth in support. Echoing a continuous theme throughout the night, Barlow rounded off a rich and engaging series of speeches by emphasising the need for far-reaching democratisation of the BBC’s decision-making and funding processes.
