Pointing the Finger by Julian Petley

Author:Julian Petley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications

‘A closed demonstration of one point of view’

‘A Question of Leadership’ can be described as a classic example of thesis-driven journalism. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this kind of reportage, but the problems arise when it tips over into tendentiousness, when one has the distinct impression that the journalist is grinding an axe, that they’ve gone out to find the facts to fit – as opposed to test – their thesis, and that nothing they discover will sway them from the view with which they set out in the first place. This is the distinct impression left by this particular edition of Panorama, for all the reasons outlined above. Indeed, the judgement made by Cary Bazalgette and Philip Simpson of the British Film Institute of an earlier John Ware Panorama (on the London Borough of Brent) also seems entirely apposite in the case of ‘A Question of Leadership’: ‘Any attempt at a reasoned, detached, analytic or investigative programme [was] abandoned in favour of a closed demonstration of one point of view reinforced by emotional and rhetorical flourishes’ (quoted in Curran et al., 2005: 154; this book contains a lengthy and detailed analysis of the Panorama episode in question). Indeed, one wonders how the programme’s approach to its subject can be squared with the BBC’s own editorial guidelines on impartiality which, inter alia, state that the Corporation is required ‘to produce comprehensive, authoritative and impartial coverage of news and current affairs in the UK and throughout the world to support fair and informed debate’ and ‘to treat controversial subjects with due accuracy and impartiality in our news services and other programmes dealing with matters of public policy or of political or industrial controversy’. The guidelines also add: ‘Presenters, reporters and correspondents are the public face and voice of the BBC, they can have a significant impact on the perceptions of our impartiality … Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal views of our journalists and presenters’ on matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. However, in this respect even the relatively sympathetic Ehsan Masood (2005) argued that Ware may have ‘allowed some of his assumptions to frame the film’, and that, in the battle currently being fought out within Britain’s Muslim population, ‘the reporter seems to be firing some of the ammunition collected and supplied by one side for use against the other’. And the following year, Faisal Bodi, in the Guardian, 6 June 2006, quoted a senior ex-Panorama journalist as describing the programme as ‘the most disgusting Panorama that I have ever seen. The presenter was acting like a prosecuting attorney, not a journalist.’ And when Bodi tried to question Ware about a Panorama which he was making about alleged links between Hamas and British Muslim activists, Ware replied: ‘I don’t want to talk to you, you’ve got an agenda. Bye,’ a response which some might regard as thoroughly hypocritical.

As we have seen, the MCB has never

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