Despite the Crowngate and Blue Peter scandals earlier this year, 61 per cent of respondents to a March 2008 online survey said they trusted Beeb journalists “a great deal or a fair amount”, ahead of ITV, Channel 4 and up-market reporters, and way ahead of red-top and mid-market newspapers.

That is the good news. The bad news is the BBC has fallen from grace in the last five years.

The British Journalism Review-YouGov poll, which had 1,328 adult respondents, found 20 per cent less people trusted the BBC now than they did in 2003. Then, 81 per cent of the population had said they believed in the Beeb.

This trend is not limited to the BBC. The whole of British journalism has taken a tumble: ITV and Channel 4 are trusted by only 51 per cent (against the 81 and 80 per cent of 2003, respectively), up-market and local journalists by 43 and 40 per cent (down from 65 and 60 per cent, respectively), mid-market papers by 18 per cent (down from 36 per cent), and red-top scribes by 10 per cent (down from 16 per cent).

Though the BBC rates better than senior police officers (but below local police officers and schoolteachers and family doctors, mind), and ITV fares better than the local MP, trade union leaders and ministers in the current government, that is no cause for celebration.

“What ought to worry all journalists is the massive slide in trust, relative to other organisations or groups, since this question was first asked 5 years ago,” writes Professor Steven Barnett, who analysed the survey findings in a BJR paper titled On the road to self-destruction (2008: 19; 5).

The only comfort from the findings is that tabloid journalists are not at the bottom of the pile anymore. They now have the dubious consolation of being the second-least trusted, with estate agents faring the worst among the 23 professions compared.

Up-market and local journalists are among the top nine on the trust scale, though mid-market scribes have not done well. They are only a notch higher than their red-top counterparts, below NHS managers, ‘people who run large companies’, senior council officials, Labour government ministers and senior Whitehall civil servants, in that order.

There is a sliver of silver lining for the broadcast media in all this. People trust television more than they do the news in ink — BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are among the top nine, while the print journalists are ranked further down the ladder.

Discussing the many reasons for the “crumbling faith in British journalism”, Barnatt writes: “Just as one man-biting-dog story provokes a flurry of canine-biting tales, so exposés of ‘failing’ journalism have become fashionable.”

He feels the media might be adding to the widespread scepticism by exaggerating – at times even inventing – examples of media misconduct.

“Good journalism makes a difference to the kind of society we live in, and to distrust it is eventually to destroy it,” he writes. “That’s why trust matters, and that’s why we should all be worried by the findings of this survey.”

Jameela Oberman can be reached at jameela.interjunction@googlemail.com.

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Surely, and not slowly.

It’s PR that Nick Davies, award-winning investigative reporter and author of Flat Earth News, is talking about here. He believes public relation officials have an alarming degree of control over media content today.

A Cardiff University study shows the average reporter fills three times more news space than in 1985. So journalists are under pressure to produce more copy, and often recycle reports to meet deadlines.

Press ownership is at the heart of this trend, Davies said, and media giants are more concerned with checking their bottom line than checking facts.

“This injected commercialisation is killing the logic of journalism,” he said at a Westminster Media Forum conference in London on PR and Journalism – Government and Health Sector Media Relations.

The Cardiff research, which analysed 2,000 news stories, found more than 80 per cent of the items were composed from second-hand sources. Also, only 12 per cent had been checked for accuracy.

The way the news industry functions now, journalists do not take the time to research the press releases that land on their desks. “Instead of being news gatherers we are becoming information processors,” said Davies, who won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 1999 and the Europe Prize: Journalism for a Changing World in 2004.

So the model of the press as public watchdog is being undermined. Worse, this ‘cut-corner’ approach to filling up news space is resulting in a press that can be easily manipulated – and often misleads the public.

The conference also highlighted the uneasy relationship between the media and the government, projecting it as a particular roadblock to good journalism. Political communication veteran David Hill said while everyone tries to influence the news agenda, the way in which the media sees the government is a cause for concern.

“The media’s attitude shows assumptions that the government is without ethics,” said Hill, who was Tony Blair’s director of communications till 2003, “and that political figures are only in it for private gain.”

This mindset coupled with the journalistic belief that “only bad news is news at all” has kept the government on the backfoot. But gloomy headlines rake in more profit, and Hill said he doesn’t see a truce being struck till journalists show a willingness to be balanced.

“At the moment,” he said, “there is no incentive for the media to change and no reason for the government to play along.”

While some press offices may be benign, Davies said, it is the structure of the news machine that is allowing their views to be published unquestioned. “Even honest PR makes selections for us,” he said. “We should source it ourselves, we should decide.”

The rise of the internet means more people read news online, which is not profitable for corporations. This has led to job cuts. Which, in turn, has put pressure on reporters to file more copy is less time, and Davies said journalists need to demand more time and more space. Every time they do that, a battle is won.

“Good journalism isn’t dead, it’s just terribly ill,” he said. “But it’s worth fighting for.”

Angelica Jopson is a writer at Interjunction. She can be reached at angelica.interjunction@googlemail.com

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That was the focus of a Fleet Street conference organised by the International Communications Forum, which featured media academics and journalists of repute — among them, Phillip Knightley, Martin Bell, Yvonne Ridley, Rafael Marques, and Professor Stuart Allan.

“The real war and the war reported by the media are different,” said Knightley, author of First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the Crimea to Kosovo. “Reporting conflicts in foreign lands become an extension of government justification for the war rather than the public reality of war.”

Knightley, Ridley, Marques and Bell were united in their criticism of the limited representation of conflicts by military-controlled ‘embeds’.

Bell, the BBC foreign correspondent-turned-politician, began the debate, saying war correspondents are stuck in the ‘green zone’, unable to reach the people affected by war. If they are not embedded they run the risk of being shot and killed, often by ‘friendly fire’. 

“News is run by the government,” he said, “the news organisations have to be in with the government.”

War reporting — where does a journalist’s duty lie, held at the St Bride’s Church mid-April, focussed on the conflict between the nationalist politics of a journalist and his responsibility towards the people affected by war.

Knightley, who expressed admiration for war correspondent William Howard Russell — Russell brought home the reality of the Crimean War to the British public by way of the Times in the 1850s — said his own reports were criticised because he wrote more like a ‘peace correspondent’, which the establishment found unpalatable.

For his part, BBC World Affairs Editor Jonathan Baker defended the use of ‘green zones’ or ‘roof-top journalism’.

“You can still produce excellent journalism from within green zones,” he said. “The BBC tries to resolve the restrictions in which we are obliged to operate and have to weigh up the expense and risks.”

Press TV presenter Ridley, famously kidnapped by the Taliban when reporting for the Daily Express, said the media is used by the government to endorse conflicts. Un-embedded journalists risk being shot dead by the US military, as has happened in Iraq.

Times columnist Magnus Linklater said it is harder today to maintain high standards than before, because the war situation is more complex than it has been.

Freelance editorial consultant Martin Huckerby, who works for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, said it was the journalists’ responsibility to be aware of prejudices they may have when reporting foreign affairs.

Bell said independent journalism was virtually impossible in today’s professional media organisations. He expressed concern over how government spin doctors manipulate the media.

But if the conventional media do not tell people what they want to know, they now have the option of turning to citizen journalists. Marques, known for his investigative reports into the diamond industry and government corruption in Angola, said of this struggle over information:

“There are two conflicting wars — the military war and the public opinion war. The public can take more control over the news than the journalists. Citizen Journalism is a real challenge to the authority of professional journalists.”

Bournemouth University Professor Stuart Allan said unapologetic subjectivity in reporting connects with people. User-generated content appeals to readers because it offers them a diversity of perspectives from around the world.

Marques said western news is mostly dictated by the politics of UK and USA and this has to change. International reporting should focus more on the ordinary people affected by war, he said.

Jameela Oberman is a writer at Interjunction. Mail her at jameela.interjunction@gmail.com

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NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear sent members a fact sheet with key definitions and terminology about asylum, immigration and refugees in the hope it will reduce misleading copy.

In a letter to members, Dear said: “The media plays a key role in how refugees and asylum seekers are perceived and, ultimately, how they are treated by the public at large.

“The NUJ is only too aware that inaccurate, sensationalist and inflammatory stories harm community relations and can lead to violent attacks against some of the most vulnerable people in society.”

The plea comes after attacks on immigrant workers in the UK. In January, a 39-year-old Polish worker living in Birmingham was beaten up and had paint poured over his face to create a suffocating ‘mask’.

Two weeks later, vandals daubed racist graffiti on a house belonging to a Polish couple in Shrewsbury, before setting it on fire.

In March, the Coventry Telegraph revealed that half of the 3,000 asylum seekers and refugees living in the city had no basic health care, and had “slipped the net”.

Dear’s call for accurate and sensitive reporting has been welcomed by Bemma Donkoh, the UK representative of the UN Refugee Council (London).

She said: “Balanced and well-informed media coverage of refugee issues gives readers impartial and considered access to sides of the story often lost or misrepresented.

“In recent years, strides have been made to address the danger that inaccurate, misleading or distorted reporting may generate an atmosphere of fear and hostility that is not borne out of facts.”

The NUJ guide [PDF file] defines baggage-laden terms such as “refugee” and explains the difference between “illegal immigrants” and “irregular immigrants”, and offers advice when interviewing such sources.

Ryan Hooper is a UK journalist. He can be reached at rjhooper@hotmail.co.uk

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The Quality and Independence of British Journalism: Tracking the changes over 20 years has found a reporter now files an average of 4.5 stories a day — up from the one or two earlier.

The result is that journalists rely heavily on ‘pre-packaged’ news — PR material or wire services — rather than produce independent copy.

And worse, this trend is set to continue.

“The findings are important for all of us,” said Professor Justin Lewis, the lead researcher. “If we want good, independent journalism, we have to be prepared to pay for it.”

He said the PR industry, mostly derived from corporate and business companies, is more successful than ever in getting material published. A statistic in proof: 60 per cent press articles and 34 per cent broadcast stories now are from PR packages.

The study, which draws on a content analysis and interviews of 42 journalists, provides insights into the pressures of modern journalism. The average number of editorial employees in British newspapers has fallen from 786 in 1985 to 741 in 2004 – despite which they are expected to produce more copy.

“It’s become a lot easier to use PR because of the technology,” a journalist is quoted as saying. “It’s very easy and convenient and as we’re producing so many more stories, we use it.”

The study highlights another unwelcome trend: fact-checking has decreased, particularly in press agency copy, with 99 per cent journalists putting the cause down as deadline pressure and increased demand for copy.

“Newspapers have turned into copy factories,” a correspondent from a national newspaper is quoted as saying. “This leaves less time for real investigations, or meeting and developing contacts. The arrival of online editors has also increased demand for copy, reducing the time available for checking the facts.”

Besides PR material, the study shows journalists also use more Press Association and other wire copy. 

Thirty of 34 journalists interviewed said they used such copy often – but rarely attributed the source.

For their part, broadcasters produce more independent journalism than their print cousins. The study found they used PR material as ‘prompt’ for stories, choosing to develop fresh ‘angles’.

Reliance on ‘pre-packaged’ stories and advances in technology mean journalism has now become a largely desk-based job. This has also led to homogenised news – as an interviewee put it, there is the danger of “too much ‘generic’ material, meaning everyone ends up with the same platitudes”.

“All the trends suggest that for various reasons cost-cutting will continue, which will inevitable damage the quality of journalism,” said Professor Lewis. “The hope is that the demand for good journalism may encourage owners to pay for it.”

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Discussion forums and online polls mostly say the media was right to agree to the embargo. There is also anger against the American Drudge Report and the Australian New Idea.

The Daily Mail, Sun, and News of the World posted online polls on the topic, while the BBC ran a message board with the question: ‘Should the British media have agreed to a black-out of the news that Prince Harry was serving in Afghanistan?’

Ninety-one per cent of those polled on the Daily Mail felt the media was right to keep Harry’s secret. So did 90 per cent on the Sun.

On the News of the World, there was 90 per cent support.

On Guardian Online, while many criticised Harry for going to war, roughly 80 per cent were happy with the media blackout.

The BBC’s message board received more than 270 responses, of which an estimated 80 per cent were supportive of the media. Also debated was the question whether Harry is a hero or a liability to international relations.

“To talk about the media,” reads a response, “is missing the main question of what on earth a member of the royal family is doing out there in the first place?”

Mirror readers debated the justification for British troops in Afghanistan. One reader wrote, “No one should get killed over another’s beliefs.”

The legitimacy of war was debated on the Independent‘s not-so-vibrant discussion board as well.

The Times attracted 219 comments, mostly angry at the Drudge Report, praising Harry and also critical of the media attention to royals.

“[This is] a wake up call to newspaper editors that nobody cares…” said one. “I certainly didn’t notice that for 10 weeks I haven’t seen an article or a picture on Harry falling out of Boujis.”

Most people showed no tolerance for anti-embargo stands. Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow, who thanked God for Matt Drudge, came under fire. “Jon Snow in one absolutely idiotic, thoughtless, stupid statement has just lost C4News one viewer,” said a response.

A minority, however, supported Snow. “I think in fact he was making a valuable point missed elsewhere,” wrote one from this camp. “[I]n a democratic society accommodations made by the media (even if it is to protect a Prince) are the start of a very dangerous and slippery road to
censorship.”

More expressive were the comments about the Drudge Report. “This website should be closed down NOW!!” wrote a Sun reader. “One small minded, idiot of a journalist has now put the lives of UK forces in danger. If anyone dies out there now, he/she should be tried for murder.”

A marginal section felt the embargo breach was a PR stunt to arrest the decreasing public support for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jameela Oberman is a writer at Interjunction.

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We had both spent the initial part of our careers in the media industry, and as fresh recruits to academia, the divide was all the more glaring to us. Despite the many commonalities the two shared, neither media nor academia appeared keen to make any effort beyond the routine to interact with the other.

There was also an element of mutual suspicion: many mediapeople looked at academics as boring, tweed-jacketed armchair thinkers far removed from reality; and many academics thought of mediapeople as slick, hardnosed bulldogs too busy chasing ‘reality’ that they failed to think.

The gulf needed a bridge, we felt. The two worlds had a lot to offer each other.

Interjunction is an effort in that direction, a bridge across media and academia. A platform. At its simplest, it is a multi-blog. At its best, a full-fledged newszine on issues of interest to media professionals and academics.

We also see it as a networking tool, a forum that will put journalists and academicians from across the world in touch. Read more about our objectives here.

In the days to come, we hope to present a variety of posts. Essays, news, views, reviews, interviews… on a variety of media-related subjects: from ethics to effects to education.

Bookmark us!

Rohit & Chindu

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