NO NEWS IS BAD NEWS
Stephen Glover on how democracy is being
stifled by the dumbing down of current affairs television
NEWSNIGHT and News at Ten were once the twin pillars of my evening. The children were in bed, the dog asleep, the decks were cleared. News at Ten might have dumbed down since its heyday in the 1980s but it was still live and dramatic, with Michael Brun- son bringing news from the front, chins quivering with excitement. Newsnight was the forum in which the great political issues of the day were slugged out. Night after night, Michael Howard or Kenneth Clarke or Norman Fowler or some other Tory war- horse did battle with Jeremy Paxman.
And now? Well, it is almost exactly a year since the last And now? Well, it is almost exactly a year since the last bulletin of News at Ten went out, on 5 March 1999. I rarely watch its shorter and much less energetic substitute at 11 o'clock. Nor do lots of other people: the new pro- gramme has an audience lit- tle more than half that of its predecessor. As for News- night, although its audience has not gone down — indeed, it has slightly increased, prob- ably because of the demise of News at Ten — the old politi- cal excitement has gone. You are as likely to find a slightly bored and distracted Jeremy Paxman interviewing some- one about diets as find him engaged in a real bout of political fisticuffs. For much of the time the old monster is safely tethered.
From 9.30 p.m,, when the last drumbeats of the nine o'clock news die down, until the first pips of the Today programme, those interested in politics find themselves in a kind of desert. There is the ten o'clock news on Radio Four, and for obsessives and insomniacs there is the incessant chatter of Radio Five Live or the questionable plea- sure of BBC News 24. Strictly speaking, there is more political news than there used to be, but it is parcelled out in bits and pieces for minority tastes. In the main- stream there is far less. Most of us no longer see Mr Brunson's quivering chins anyway, the great man has just retired and have little idea what has being going on in Parliament that evening. Leading politi- cians often feel they can avoid the News- night studio, or else they are not invited.
Who is to blame? In the case of News at Ten it is pretty clear. The ITV companies wanted to make even more money, and they have done so. The overall number of people watching news at any time on ITV has fallen from 16.3 million to 13.9 million over the past year, and nearly all this decline can be attributed to the death of News at Ten. But at ten o'clock the number of people watching ITV has increased by some 300,000. It doesn't sound much, but ITV is reckoned to have raked in an extra £70 million in advertising revenue as a con- sequence of getting rid of News at Ten. Those who live only by the market will say that all this shows that more people like watching ITV's fascinating new dramas than news. But it is not clear that the ITV companies are fulfilling their obligations under the Broadcasting Act to provide quality news at peak time, though the new 6.30 p.m. news bulletin comes within the existing definition of peak time.
Greed is not the problem at Newsnight. For at least three years BBC boxwallahs have believed that the programme was too political. In 1997 its then editor, Peter Hor- rocks, said that it would become 'lighter with not so much of a night-time feel' while Mr Paxman would be doing more than 'just Rottweiler interviews'. As prophecies go, this was an accurate one. Sian Kevill, Mr Horrocks's successor, has sped off with the baton he handed her. In the recent pro- gramme to mark the 20th anniversary of Newsnight, Ms Kevill had a dig at the 'pub- lic school and particularly Oxbridge' types who had once dominated Newsnight in their 'competitive' way. (If this was not a sly jab at old Paxo, I don't know what it was.) She had a 'diverse programme' — for which we should read a 'less political' pro- gramme. It will become less political still if the new BBC director-general, Greg Dyke, gets his way. During the same anniversary show, he offered the view that 'politi- cians in the nation state are no longer so powerful' and that Wewsnight probably has to widen who it interviews to reflect what's happened to society'.
In other words, politics is boring — a view also recent- ly vouchsafed by no less a personage than the editor of the Observer — and politi- cians are not very important. It is what many in the self- obsessed media class believe.
They, of course, think they are very much more important. But perhaps they confuse celebrity and financial reward with power. Politicians can still wage stupid and cruel wars, still take more than 40 per cent of our income in one form or another, and still introduce all kinds of pettifogging reg- ulations into our already over-regulated lives. They can also do some good. How can it be seriously maintained that they 'are no longer so powerful'? The ITV boys were driven by simple greed in killing off News at Ten. The BBC boys are in the grip of a modish and ignorant preconception. The statement 'politics is boring' can very easily be elided into the statement 'democracy does not matter'.
Of course, it is not only the fault of the BBC. Whereas many politicians grumble about the death of News at Ten, few of them are worried about the neutering of Newsnight. They liked News at Ten because it gave them a platform and an audience. They were taken seriously and that is why Tony Blair and Gerald Kaufman et al. want the programme back. Newsnight, with the rampaging Paxo and the waspish Kirsty Wark, is a different proposition. If the BBC should chose to de-politicise it, why should they care? In the mid-1990s Tory heavyweights felt hon- our-bound to accept the Paxo challenge and seemed to relish their confrontations with him even though they often came off worst. Now Labour ministers use the pro- gramme only when it suits them. Most of them will avoid contests with their opposi- tion counterparts, and prefer pre-record- ings on their own terms. If Newsnight executives demur, as they sometimes do, a junior minister is dispatched to appear live on the programme. At least two min- isters, Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers, have never appeared since joining the Cabinet. Throughout the recent argu- ments about NHS funding, Mr Milburn did not once subject himself to interroga- tion by Paxo or Kirsty or the new boy, Jeremy Vine. You would think that the Tories would take advantage of all this and beetle off to the Newsnight studio at every opportunity. Some do, of course, just as ministers such as Jack Straw are happy to pop along. But the official Tory policy is to urge caution. Those who guard the sacred flame that is the leader of Her Majesty's opposition are inclined to risk no exposure whatsoever to Newsnight. William Hague has appeared only once on the programme during the last two years despite numerous invitations. His advisers assert that it is not fear of Paxo that keeps him away, and point out that he doesn't mind a spot of jousting with John Humphrys on the Today programme. (But if Paxo is a Rottweiler, Humphrys is perhaps more of a cunning terrier.) One of Mr Hague's team claims that he is game for a good old knockabout. The trouble is there is 'a lot of aggro for very little cut- through'. Newsnight is seen as a chattering- class programme which few real Tories watch. Far better appear on regional televi- sion and radio, which is what Mr Hague is now doing. All this seems to me pretty average bunkum. The Tories are hardly in a posi- tion to pick and choose, and should get stuck in wherever they can. Proper Conser- vatives surely do watch Newsnight and, in any case, Mr Hague has presumably not given up trying to win over non-Tories to the cause. Journalists also still watch the programme. Even though it has been watered down, it is a political showcase in which the reputations of politicians are assessed by the media class who, notwith- standing everything I have said, remain jolly important. The Tories should be showing up the government's reluctance to engage in debate rather than joining them in the same funk.
I grant that the Major years were excep- tional. We may never again see the specta- cle of government ministers grappling with Paxo, week in, week out, in front of a jeer- ing nation. Those were odd years. People rightly point out that in her day Margaret Thatcher was no more anxious to appear on Newsnight than Tony Blair is now and even he has appeared twice in recent months. But politics are becoming more turbulent again. Will Sian Kevill's News- night be able to rise to the occasion? Will Labour and Tory politicians feel compelled to turn down the opportunity of an early night to troop along to BBC Television Centre? I wouldn't count on it.
As for News at Ten, this is subject to a review by the Independent Television Commission, which will report in May. The object of the exercise is to determine whether ITV bosses have kept their side of the bargain. I don't see how they can be said to have done so given the trash they are generally pumping out between 9 and 11 p.m., and the absence of a decent news bulletin at a time that many of us want to watch. Michael Brunson has been kicking up a terrific stink and is about to publish a book in which he lays into ITV. Half of Parliament is up in arms. But I wouldn't count on the ITC demanding the restitu- tion of News at Ten any more than I would expect to see Jeremy Paxman let off his leash.
It's a sign of the times: less politics, more fun. It has happened in many of our serious newspapers and now it is happening on mainstream television. The chief beneficia- ries, of course, are Tony Blair and New Labour. I know he says he wants News at Ten back but that, as I have suggested, is largely to do with political vanity. Who can doubt that if there were still a News at Ten, and if Newsnight were again the pro- gramme it once was, the government would be required to give a much better account of itself? Tony Blair doesn't really need News at Ten and an emasculated Newsnight suits him just fine. Actually it suits all gov- ernments just fine if poor saps like Greg Dyke believe that politicians are not impor- tant. But it doesn't suit us voters, sitting at home on our sofas, with nothing to watch.
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