Was BB row newsworthy?
| 10:31 UK time, Wednesday, 24 January 2007
We've been having a lively debate at The World Tonight over Big Brother – no, not about who should be evicted from the house, but over how much coverage and prominence the programme should have devoted to the row over alleged racist bullying on the show. We had a lot of complaints from listeners after Friday's programme - here's a flavour:
"I am baffled as to why the Big Brother affair was broadcast as the lead item, especially in view of another news story, the arrest by police of Ruth Turner (the adviser to Tony Blair arrested in connection with the loans for peerages investigation) …" The e-mailer went on to say the BB row is just not serious news.
Another listener wrote, “It is sad that your headline item this evening was the Big Brother story. While the racist issue is worth some reportage, the time you have devoted, not just this evening, to the mechanics of the programme is out of proportion to its overall importance. The World Tonight is supposed to be a serious programme.”
We have received more complaints over this than anything we have done since we led the programme with England's win (a distant memory for England fans now) in the Ashes - another decision many listeners called just plain wrong.
Why did we cover Big Brother? Well, it seemed one of those occasions when many people who don't normally watch this kind of programme were commenting on it - including politicians who were very critical of Channel 4 which like the ̳ has a public service remit - and that, in the view of many on the team, made it a story worthy of coverage by a programme like ours.
Did we get the coverage right? I'm not so sure we did. The listener who said we did too much on the mechanics of the programme may have a point. We had started out with the intention of talking to an academic who had studied reality TV and could deconstruct it for us and explain why it has the popular appeal it has and how much influence what the audience see has on them as individuals - for instance, does it legitimise racist attitudes. Unfortunately, there are only a few people who have done this kind of work in any depth and none of them were available.
So we decided to focus on the more immediate result of the eviction vote and what that said about public attitudes to racism and we interviewed the publicist Max Clifford whose expertise lies more in how people in the public eye - like Jade Goody in this case - and the interview ended up being predominantly about how someone in her position may be able to recover from bad publicity.
On whether we should have led on the story or should have led on the arrest of Ruth Turner, we had a lively debate. The factors we discussed - and this often applies to discussions over which story we choose to lead the programme with - were
• which story was the most significant - a row that appears to lift the lid on racist attitudes or the arrest of a member of the prime minister's inner circle?
• which story was the freshest news - BB had been around all week, but Jade Goody was voted off the programme 20 minutes before air time, whereas Ruth Turner arrest was announced in mid-afternoon?
• how strong is the material we have on the story - a very good report from our reporter in Bermondsey on attitudes to Jade Goody's behaviour from her local area or strong criticism of the police from Lord Puttnam?
• and informing all of this we consider how a story fits with the agenda of The World Tonight, which aims to take a global, in depth, analytical approach, and whether our audience will be interested in it
There was not consensus among the team on this and we will take on board listeners’ complaints and will carry on discussing whether we got this one right for our programme and our audience.
Comments
I have to say I have a rather sinical view, it seems to me that news is all about ratings. The BB story would bring more views in, based on it's relational qualities, where as the political story is, less understood, not so personally understandable, and above all it feeds the publics endless need for gossip.
In short news coveragae on whatever channel is about getting viewers, not about reporting news. I did not see the report, but no doubt it was casting a shadow over ch4 in order to big up ̳.
Am i to sinical?
Perhaps the relative importance of the pieces should have been considered.
After all if the ̳ seriously believes that the views of a non-entity like Jade is more important then a key aide to the PM being arrested for attempting to pervert the cause of justice then I think that any respect the ̳ once had should be well an truly lost.
If you even have to ask what is most significant then perhaps it is time to release that you are to quote a popular phrase "not fit for purpose".
I would hope that you would understand that fluff stories blown up by the media to fill slow news days are less important then actual news stories.
The ̳ seems to have gone out there way to bury this arrest story - first by running a non-story about an email between two very low ranking tories, and now by another non-story about a woman who is only famous for showing how stupid she is on a reality show.
Just how much is the Blair government paying you to bury the news for it?
I was sorry that tv trivia took precedence over political shenanigans. This is what you expect from the red top papers (and ̳1 News which is very similar these days, including the size of its captions) not from Newsnight.
Alister
the coverage was absolutely justified - Channel 4 is a publicly owned service which broadcast days of disgusting racist filth under the guise of entertainment.
At the same time as Andy Duncan was justifying the content and denying it was racist Tessa Jowell floated plans to give Channel 4 £14million of public money.
Given the way in which C4 ignored public reaction to the comments broadcast there are legitimate questions about the rightness of that idea. The public can't form an informed opinion unless they know the full facts including the sort of content C4 is happy to include in an edited version of the show.
What makes Duncan's denials all the more farcical is that he is an unquestioned genius at marketing.
Under his steer Freeview became the most successful DTT service in the world and banished the hapless legacy off ITV Digital to history.
That a man as brilliant as he could fail to spot the brand damage this row caused is staggering.
I think the views expressed in comment 1 is too cynical - if there was so much criticism of covering this story, how is that expected to bring in MORE listeners when many of them complained about it?
Also, I'm pretty sure most of Big Brother's audience would not be turning on to Radio 4 to hear about the latest news from the programme, so I see their effort as trying to explain a big story to an audience who aren't particularly well informed about it.
Ratings, ratings ratings. These are the only three things the ̳ news room seem to be interested in nowadays. But the ̳ get two for the price of one here. Yet again, when there is a story that might be embarrassing for the government a non-story is given top billing. Dumbing down and biased, what a poor state the ̳ is in now.
"Was BB row newsworthy?" Only in that it was blown up into a national debate stirred up by a few mildly offensive comments by a private individual deliberately put in a situation intended to provoke personal confrontation. And that it provoked an international incident resulting from indignation by a nation whose own abusive practices of prejudicial discrimination and disregard of human rights on a wide range of issues including religion, class, and sex is infinitely worse than Britain's. A tempest in a teapot, exactly what I'd expect out of Lilliput.
There has already been a discussion here about editorial issues surrounding the Big Brother coverage, which was initiated by one of the Five Live editors. I guess the whole furore has helped to draw a veil over any discussion on this blog about the re-launched Panorama.
I confused over the rationale of the freshest story wins. Surely 'man trips over pavement 2 minutes ago' wouln't win against 'US delcares war on Iran an hour ago'?
It was disappointing to see the BB story first. We edge closer and closer to mindless 'entertainment' masquerading as News instead of what really affects this country.
It does seem that there is a definite quest for ratings.
However, be forwarned - the blind chase for ratings can lead to your downfall. Do a Google/Wikipedia search for WCW, who went from a $150 million/year company to bankruptcy in 5 years for their persuit of ratings. Whilst circumstances between them and the ̳ are clearly different, chasing ratings can be dangerous.
Just stick to what you're good at, not what's popular.
Channel 4 which like the ̳ has a public service remit
Perish the thought that the ̳ should be influenced by the opportunity to show a competitor for public funds in a critical light at licence renewal time.
But, to be serious. I'm afraid I don't normally get to listen to The World Tonight, so I can't comment on your coverage, but I do think that the BB story was an important one.
The unconscious nature of so much of today's racism is exactly why so many people don't get why it was an important story.
This was illustrated, too, by the way some of the press (and Gordon Brown) could interpret the vote to evict Goody as showing a recoil against racism. If we were truly anti-racist, we would have refused to vote, instead of using expensive phone calls to reward Channel 4 for its behaviour.
BB [Big Brother][as well as Reality Shows] are newsworthy because they are areas where bigotry and ignorance thrive. Reality TV Shows should be removed from the air.
We have one in Miami Florida hosted by a Cuban Model called Sissy on Gen TV that divides people according to race and social class. It has created a lot of hatred and resentment.
There is another one called Survival on CBS that also divides people according to race and ethnicity.
These Reality TV Shows are the programmes that cause most of our conflicts. They should be removed from the Air and the people doing the humiliating should receive a pie in the face followed by a public water hosing.
“…but I don't rule out the possibility that it was simply a misjudgement” says the Newsnight editor who chose not to feature the Ruth Turner story. Blow me, then “The World Tonight” editor asks: “Did we get the coverage right?” followed by his own verdict: “I’m not sure we did” - about his decision also to relegate Ruth Turner to an also-ran story in favour of Big Brother.
It is obvious that the ̳ is leftist/Liberal. I have always put this down to the facts that: i) there is a tendency for the bulk of journalists to be Liberal/centre-left, just as those in the arts are commonly left wing and those in business are usually right wing; (ii) the influx of left-wingers into the ̳ in the 1980’s. What I never subscribed to was that the ̳ was institutionally biased. I never for a moment thought there was any serious organised left/Liberal movement in the ̳. I just thought that the sheer numbers of people of this persuasion produced the bias that we hear and see every day on the ̳.
After what happened with the Ruth Turner story, even I am having doubts. Can it really be a co-incidence that two editors made virtually the same mistake on the same day, on one of the worst news day for the Labour Party since they came to power? For what it’s worth, I think the arrests about the cash for honours enquiry were way over the top. I suspect that No.10 were doing what previous administrations have been doing for years. In fact I think this treatment is unfair to Tony Blair, his aides and the Labour Party. However, if the ̳ think that Labour have been given a rough ride, they have absolutely no right to bury the story in this way. Did you get it right? No! Was it a misjudgement? I sincerely hope so!
Forgive me if I'm wrong but the debate touches on the 'Is the story worth all the coverage it has had?' argument, right?
The irony here is blindingly obvious - a serious news programme questioning whether their lead item is newsworthy.
Quite frankly, yes it was a good chance to get new and interested listeners on board but it's a debate with no end and still holds very few new points to discuss.
I'm shocked that some Radio 4 listeners considered the story to be unimportant. I have long been really angry with the way public service broadcasting has been diminishing in recent years, and Radio 4 listeners of all people should realise how important it is to get this trash off our screens.
Media is one of the four main pillers of a democracy.Media helps any society discard its vices.Any event which can be useful to reform a society is newsworthy.I think a programme gets good ratings when it somewhere expresses the happiness,pain,agonies of man.As a marginalised citizen in my own country India I got a chance to tell the world because of this news that these people oppose racism abroad but at the same time follow inhuman castesystem in their own country India.I also got a chance to tell the world that scientifically there is only one true cast,creed,race of all humankind that is *Homosapian by writing a blog here.This news will make the world introspect and help abolish all manmade differences like caste,creed,race.An honest media can help make the world a better place.Unfortunately for India Pre-indipendence indian media which rose its voice against Sati( tradition of burning widows alive),castesystem,keishwapan(traditin of making childwidows bald) is dead today.
Media is one of the four main pillers of a democracy.Media helps any society discard its vices.Any event which can be useful to reform a society is newsworthy.I think a programme gets good ratings when it somewhere expresses the happiness,pain,agonies of man.As a marginalised citizen in my own country India I got a chance to tell the world because of this news that these people oppose racism abroad but at the same time follow inhuman castesystem in their own country India.I also got a chance to tell the world that scientifically there is only one true cast,creed,race of all humankind that is *Homosapian by writing a blog here.This news will make the world introspect and help abolish all manmade differences like caste,creed,race.An honest media can help make the world a better place.Unfortunately for India Pre-independence indian media which rose its voice against Sati( tradition of burning widows alive),castesystem,keishwapan(traditin of making childwidows bald) is dead today.
Congratulations on your openness Mr Burnett, though I'm afraid a willingness to admit error is unlikely to help your career in the ̳ !
I'd agree that putting the BB row ahead of the Ruth Turner affair was poor judgement to say the least. An aspect which you miss from your description of the affairs is that the latter story was not just 'the arrest of an aide to the PM' - it was the arrest of the Director of Government Relations in relation to inquiries concerning the sale of honours and the perverting of justice - offences which, if committed by any member of Blair's inner circle would surely provide the most spectacular instance of political corruption seen in the UK in the last 50 years.
Surely the point is that the coverage of Big Brother was stoked by politicians who hadn't seen it, and tabloid journalists who didn't believe it. They conspired to create a mock furore about a television programme that did nothing more than captured people bullying. C4 didn't condone the bullying any more than the Secret Policemen condoned the racism uncovered within the policeforce. To suggest that this was racism as entertainment is facile. The black and white minstrel show is racism as entertainment. Big Brother is what Britain is like - but viewed under a microscope. Isn't it better that we see it, debate it and are appalled by it rather deny it exists.
Surely the greatest exploitation was by the Bollywood Star? She is said to be wealthy, educated etc, a rounded person. So what was her motive? I am reminded of Laurie Lee's story of the man who returned to his village, having been years away, and splashed his money about. They killed him.
I think the way Channel4 dealt with the issue (or didn't in this case) was more newsworthy then the bullying and racism was. It shows that for a public broadcaster they have very little interest in the what the public think.
Maybe it's time they were sold off, they are no different to other commercial broadcasters so why treat them as if they were?
""I am baffled as to why the Big Brother affair was broadcast as the lead item, especially in view of another news story, the arrest by police of Ruth Turner (the adviser to Tony Blair arrested in connection with the loans for peerages investigation) "
Call me cynical, but I thought it was obvious why ...Oh never mind.
'Was BB row newsworthy?'
Well, perhaps the appearance of the terms "BB" and anything positively "-worthy" is oxymoronic, as a starter!
BB is not noteworthy and so any resultant fallout should not be newsworthy.....
...but for the fact that a worrying percentage of noisy people seem to need to perpetuate the tosh and extrapolate the societal splat! of such a contrived microcosm.
It's no more 'Real Britain', than 'Little Britain' is! As satire is contrived - by definition - the latter is seen as a humourous staging of socio-political issues. However, just because BB is a kind of knee-jerk 'live' thing, some folk seem to need to live it too! It's not as laughable - and in the comfort zone - as obviously prescripted satire.
If the wider viewing public could see what I see in these parallels, then there wouldn't be so much ancst - and the viewing ratings of BB would plummet!
Is my commentary newsworthy?
ROFL!
Are you related to the great ex ITN anchor?
Any incident that has the potential to have a longterm effect on any society is newsworthy.Shilpa's news made a lot of people introspect(here in India people introspected about its own social evil i.e. castesystem).That's why I think that this incident was newsworthy.Thank you.
The topic of CBB was justified - after all, almost everyone seemed to have something to say on the topic. However, the level of journalism over the subject was very poor. It was an ideal opportunity to discuss the flaw concept of racism (for example, what is a race? Can someone be said to be of a different 'race' simply because of skin colour. And if so, why don't we think the same about labradors?!! The term racism is racist) and the relative importance given to bullying levelled at a person's ethnicity, sex, class, looks, accent, intelligence etc. Jade is of mixed race and has to hear many comments about her squashed, pig-like (i.e. negroid) features - for eample on last week's Radio 4 News Quiz. Is that okay then becuae she's stupid?
Was BB row newsworthy? Surely the question should be "did we get our priorities wrong?" Or, perhaps "is the ̳ biased".
“…but I don't rule out the possibility that it was simply a misjudgement” says the Newsnight editor who chose not to feature the Ruth Turner story. Blow me, then “The World Tonight” editor asks: “Did we get the coverage right?” followed by his own verdict: “I’m not sure we did” - about his decision also to relegate Ruth Turner to an also-ran story in favour of Big Brother.
It is obvious that the ̳ is leftist/Liberal. I have always put this down to the facts that: i) there is a tendency for the bulk of journalists to be Liberal/centre-left, just as those in the arts are commonly left wing and those in business are usually right wing; (ii) the influx of left-wingers into the ̳ in the 1980’s. What I never subscribed to was that the ̳ was institutionally biased. I never for a moment thought there was any serious organised left/Liberal movement in the ̳. I just thought that the sheer numbers of people of this persuasion produced the bias that we hear and see every day on the ̳.
After what happened with the Ruth Turner story, even I am having doubts. Can it really be a co-incidence that two editors made virtually the same mistake on the same day, on one of the worst news day for the Labour Party since they came to power? For what it’s worth, I think the arrests about the cash for honours enquiry were way over the top. I suspect that No.10 were doing what previous administrations have been doing for years. In fact I think this treatment is unfair to Tony Blair, his aides and the Labour Party. However, if the ̳ think that Labour have been given a rough ride, they have absolutely no right to bury the story in this way. Did you get it right? No! Was it a misjudgement? I sincerely hope so!