The media is having a pretty stultifying effect on Britain at the moment. And it’s not just the usual candidates – the Daily Mail, the Murdoch press and so on – even some of our more reputable media outlets seem to be letting us down badly. We are used to the jarring experience of Paxman or Humphrys turning supposed “interviews” into egotistical games of cat and mouse, pinning their guests down on the narrowest of issues. Of course, they would tell you that it’s about providing proper scrutiny of public figures – but while there may be some truth there, the overwhelming effect is to stifle any kind of honest, constructive debate. As George Monbiot put it in his provocative article before the election, the notion of the press as a democratising force is a “pernicious lie”.
The media has extraordinary scope to present the same issue in different ways. Take the example of NICE, the body that was meant to decide which drugs the NHS could afford. It withdrew funding for some very expensive cancer drugs to focus resources on more cost effective treatments, an excruciating but ultimately sensible decision. Of course, the press has only to pick up the case of one unfortunate victim of this decision, and sensationalise it without any regard for the context around the issue. With public opinion whipped up, ministers then have no choice but to overrule NICE’s professional decisions. Ultimately, this ends up costing lives.
And this type of thing isn’t confined to the NHS. The media can make VAT progressive or regressive as it pleases, can manufacture or cover up a debt crisis as it pleases. Given the right figures, it can even make unemployment go up as well as down.
Of course, people will argue that the media just reflects what the public wants to hear. But surely the media plays just as decisive role in shaping people’s opinions as people do in shaping the headlines. It is easy to stir up anger about bankers bonuses, or abject poverty, but much harder to get people interested in the bigger picture behind their lives. In as much as this, the media plays a decisive, and often damaging role, in our national life.
But what is the alternative? For that, we have to look to characters like Vladimir Putin, Robert Mugabe and Laurent Gbagbo – not to mention Charles de Gaulle. Sepp Blatter’s warning about the “evil of the media” probably wasn’t motivated by fears about them stifling intelligent debate. Russian journalists are not normally bumped off for failing to be objective enough. A free media is an essential foundation of a free state, and not without good reason. A series of biased and simplistic debates is better than no debate at all.
My guess is that there are two ways around this. First, journalists could take it upon themselves to become more balanced and objective. But while there are many excellent people in the media doing this already, they are unlikely to have the loudest voice in a world where sensationalism sells.
Second, we, the readers, could become more educated, and better able to pick out the real issues from the hype. But we don’t choose that ourselves – it can only really happen on a large scale through effective education. We all learn a wide range of things at school – from how the weather works to the instruments in an orchestra – but we learn virtually nothing about how our society or economy functions. Under such circumstances, you can hardly expect us to be prepared for sophisticated debates about our future. My suggestion – instead of patronising young people with community service, introduce a compulsory post-school programme dedicated to understanding how politics, the economy and society works.
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