Article "The Media" from Corporate Watch, issue 5/6

The Media

The Gandalf case - where the editors of Green Anarchist and the Animal Liberation Front Support Group newsletter faced charges of `conspiracy to incite persons unknown to commit criminal damage' - ended with Noel Molland, Stephen Booth and Saxon Burchnall-Wood each receiving harsh three-year prison terms (all are appealing).

The Gandalf trial was astonishingly unfair. Not only was the trial judge an ex-Major General in the British Army, but five of the jurors also had military or arms manufacturing connections. The first day of the 12-week trial was held in secret - without either the jury or the defence present -while the judge and the prosecution decided which sections of the evidence were too secret to be revealed in court. Wide use was made of Public Interest Immunity Certificates - which famously consigned two innocent men to jail in the Matrix Churchill trial.

Judge David Selwood accused the Gandalf defendants of "terrorism", but what this case really means is that under British law journalists can be accused of `incitement' just for reporting on the actions carried out by others. "Those who incite such actions and who hope those actions will increase and proliferate are at least in my view as guilty as those who take part in the violent direct action," he said.

Even though the odds were stacked against the defendants, the jury took three days to reach its guilty verdict. In contrast, the Daily Express' guilty verdict was instantaneous: "Anarchists jailed for bombing plot" screamed its headline. "Three animal rights activists have been jailed for three years after urging extremists to send letter bombs through the post," it continued breathlessly. No defence of press freedom from the Express then.

So which of Britain's other bastions of journalistic integrity leaped to the defence of free speech in the Gandalf trial? None. The only other two national newspapers to even report the verdict were the Independent and the Guardian, which both carried tiny `news in brief' articles buried on their inside pages.

Anticipating this distinct lack of action, a diverse group of independent media groups - many of whom met recently at the Alternative Media Gathering in Oxford - has been organising a united front to try to publicise the implications of the Gandalf Five trial. "Catch-all incitement and conspiracy charges threaten not only radical publications, but anyone making statements which could be interpreted as inflamatory," says the joint statement. "It is not for the police to determine the limits of our discussions."

Journalistic Integrity

Only one journalist actually bothered to cover the Gandalf trial during the hearings - a young reporter working for the Portsmouth News. But according the Gandalf defendants, this reporter never once spoke to them except to confirm the spelling of their names. For the rest of his information he went straight to the police. Even with the time pressures which print journalists face, was this reporter really being neutral?

To be fair to the media, there are practical reasons for this uncritical attitude. Both newspapers and television - especially those operating at a local or regional level - depend on their police forces for up to two thirds of their content. Police have a virtual monopoly over drugs and crime stories - which are often the biggest sellers. Occasionally the police will invite favoured journalists to bring televison cameras to a drugs bust. The resulting dramatic footage will make great television and almost always get top billing in a current affairs programme.

Only a very foolish editor would jeopardise his relations with the police by highlighting cases of racism, violence or prejudice on their part. This can actually lead to important stories never reaching the pages or television screens. In one case recently a Scottish BBC current affairs programme had got firm evidence of police racism. But the programme was never aired, because a breakdown in communication with the police would have blown the rest of the series.

What's the Story?

Close-up on the Child Crying

How many British people are aware of the horrific civil war that is currently tearing apart Algeria? In the week before the death of Princess Diana, 300 people were massacred in a small town near Algiers - many beheaded or with their throats cut. Over 100,000 have died since 1992, when the military cancelled elections won by Islamic fundamentalists. But the killings only made one or two paragraphs on the inside pages of the broadsheets.

The same process worked in reverse in Bosnia, where television pictures of white people being killed or forced onto the road as refugees was deeply shocking to a population used to seeing such indignities inflicted only on anonymous black Africans. Does this show a deep racist streak in Britain's popular consciousness, or is it simply inevitable that people should be most interested in the events befalling those with whom they imagine they share a particular social or cultural affinity?

But there are two sides to the human interest story. Sometimes one person can catch the media's attention and bring prominence to an issue in a uniquely beneficial way. Such was the case at Fairmile, where eco-activist Swampy's `heroic stand' down the tunnel catapulted him to instant stardom. The innocent Swampy became an enduring media hit, not because he gave good sound-bites, but because he had an appealing smile and was not threatening to law-abiding people in the way that people living `alternative lifestyles' usually are. This media blitz probably did a great deal to make protest more acceptable in Britain, at a time when there is evidence to suggest that the state was preparing for a major anti-environmentalist offensive.

Equal Opportunities for White Men

The Greasy Pole

It's therefore not surprising that few ambitious journalists are likely to make a principled stand which might compromise the upward direction of their career path. As Anthony Bevins, political correspondent of the Observer (but who also worked for the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Times and the Independent) says: "Journalists cannot ignore the pre-set `taste' of their newspapers, use their own news sense in reporting the truth of any event, and survive. They are ridden by news desks and backbench executives, have their stories spiked on a systematic basis, they face the worst sort of newspaper punishment - byline deprivation." ('21st Century Media - Shaping the Democratic Vision', CPBF Media Manifesto)

Media Moguls and their Corporations

Then there's Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, third in the world after Disney, which also has global assets of $26 billion and is hugely powerful on the UK media scene. Not only does it own newspapers The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World, but it also controls satellite BSkyB television, the publishers Harper Collins and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Murdoch's control of over two thirds of national newspaper circulation gave him 10.6% of the `British national voice' according to a 1996 survey (p11, 1997 Guardian Media Guide).

Murdoch's Star TV satellite service covers most of Asia and the Middle East and can potentially reach two thirds of the world's population. As if that wasn't enough, Murdoch has plans to link up Mexico, the United States and Brazil (where he has a 50% interest in Globo TV) with a Portuguese and Spanish service beaming into the homes and minds of 400 million people (Gemini News Service, as above). With such an impressive record, Rupert surely deserved the 62% pay rise (to £4.7 million) he received in 1996 - bringing his estimated personal wealth to £250 million.

And corporate monopolies have got an iron grip on regional journalism too. Daily Mail and General Trust plc, the `authentic voice of conservatism' which publishes the London Evening Standard as well as the Daily Mail and the Sunday Mail, has a monopoly of the daily newspapers published in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Humberside - covering a population of 4.75 million (`Whose News?', New Statesman, 24 March 1995).

The power of Murdoch's chequebook has also succeeded in removing from most British people the right to watch their favourite sport - football. In June 1996 BSkyB paid £674 million for the monopoly rights to broadcast live Premier League football matches. The small-time BBC could only afford £73 million for highlight rights.

The Truth for Sale

News producers were virtually forbidden from running stories that wouldn't sell advertising. The best stories were "familiar human dramas" which were "within the consciousness of the American public, our viewing audience". In other words, Dateline NBC had crossed the line from news into entertainment - it didn't tell the public anything new, and it certainly wasn't interested in the activities of foreigners (`Selling news stories, selling out the news', Crosslines Global Report, May/June 1997).

The relentless pressure to sell itself has even tarnished ITN's flagship News at Ten programme, which has become increasingly tabloidised - carrying an ever-larger number of human interest and crime stories and an equivalent reduction in international news. In 1993 ITV bosses made a decision to shift News at Ten to 6.30pm in order to free-up the prime-time evening slot for more lucrative drama and films programming. A public outcry stopped the move, but News at Ten is still under immense pressure to pay its way.

In ITN's newsroom the business agenda is no longer seen as incompatible with honest journalism. In partnership with `the world's worst PR company' Burson Marsteller (see Corporate Watch 2) ITN runs Corporate Television Networks (CTN) - which uses ITN staff and facilities to make promotional videos for business clients. ITN claims that the two operations are separate, but a recent Guardian investigation found that reporters and television crews nevertheless switched regularly between them. CTN has even made a promotional film for Shell, which accused Nigeria's Ogoni people of responsibility for the oil spillages which have devastated their land. But Shell's lies have not been confined to company boardrooms: parts of the CTN video also ended up on British television screens in News at Ten broadcasts.

Smash the Unions

And advertising itself is hardly politically neutral - commercials impress on the viewer that consumption of a particular product will give meaning and satisfaction to his or her life and a greater peer group status. Advertisers may also have a more direct role in determining broadcast content. In a recent lecture at Coventry University, the political economist Edward Herman claimed that advertising funding was a "powerful filter of ideology" in the media - there were many cases of environmental programmes being pulled due to a lack of advertiser funding. But some advertisers are more explicit. For example, Procter and Gamble stipulates that any programme it sponsors must never criticise the business system. (`Electronic Empires - Global Media and Local Resistance', Coventry University, 28-29 March 1997)

Power Without Responsibility

"By and large editors will have complete freedom as long as they agree with the policy I have laid down," was the somewhat contradictory view of Lord Matthews, head of the Express group from 1977 to 1985. His successor, Lord Stevens, added: "I suppose the papers echo my political views... I do interfere and say enough is enough." (p89, Curran and Seaton's `Power without Responsibility') Robert Maxwell, never reluctant to give an opinion, said running newspapers "gives me the power to raise issues effectively. In simple terms, it's a megaphone." But newspaper proprietors are businessmen primarily, and they will adjust to changes in the political landscape. The Murdoch press' sudden conversion from Tory to New Labour in 1997 was almost inevitable given the strength of anti-Conservative sentiment in Britain - and Blair's commitment not to challenge the position of the private media corporations.

Manufacturing Consent

The first filter is the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth and profit orientation of dominant media outlets. The second is their reliance on advertising as a primary source of income. Third comes the media's acceptance of information provided by government and business - or `experts' who are funded or approved by them. Fourthly, powerful people use `flak' to show their displeasure at negative media statements and to enforce discipline. Lastly ideological controls such as `anticommunism' or `Muslim fundamentalism' also serve to reduce the possible diversity of opinion.

"The elite domination of the media and marginalisation of dissidents that results from the operation of these filters occurs so naturally that media news people, frequently operating with complete integrity and goodwill, are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret the news `objectively' and on the basis of professional news values," according to `Manufacturing Consent'.

But this dour picture is tempered by optimism. The media is not monolithic, and journalists with real integrity and persistence can sometimes be successful in bringing `radical' concerns to light. This, together with a greater coming-together in the alternative press, means that even with their huge resources and powerful position the big media corporations are unable to completely dominate all of the channels of mass communication in society. And as awareness grows about the pressures that distort news coverage in this and other `free' countries, fewer and fewer people will continue to believe that what they see on the television or read in the papers is really the simple, unvarnished truth.

Free the Media

• The imposition of controls to limit cross-media ownership and ensure greater pluralism.
• The use of a levy on media advertising revenue to fund new media enterprises and new forms of ownership such as community media.
• The establishment of a body to represent peoples' interests as consumers of the media - including a statutory Right of Reply.
• The repeal of laws restricting journalists' right to report, including:
  • 1981 Contempt of Court Act
  • parts of the 1986 Police and Criminal Evidence Act
  • 1994 Criminal Justice Act
  • major review of libel laws
• The Right to Report: contractual protection for journalists against interference by proprietors and editors in their professional standards. Journalists could refuse to handle copy breaching the NUJ's Code of Practice.
• A Freedom of Information Act opening up government papers to public scrutiny, coupled with reform of the 1989 Official Secrets Act and the abolition of the secret `D' Notice system (where state and media collaborate to protect `national security').
• Legislation to emphasize public service commitments of broadcasters, including abandoning the `auction' of ITV franchises.
• The injection of democratic accountability into media regulation and the protection and encouragement of community and regional media.
• The restoration of full trade union rights and a major role given to trade unions on regulatory bodies.
• Real equal opportunities, covering ethnicity, gender, disability, class, age and sexual orientation - promoted and properly funded throughout the media

Contact

Further Information

The Guardian Media Guide, published annually by the Guardian

Manufacturing Consent: The political economy of the mass media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, published 1988 by Vintage.

Power without Responsibility, J. Curran and J. Seaton, 1991

Gemini News Service, available by subscription from
gemini@gn.apc.org

Inter Press Service, available by subscription from
http://www.ips.org/

OneWorld News Service on
http://www.oneworld.org/news/