Cash for peerages: The BBC's reporting isn't the problem with politics

There's an entertaining difference of opinion between The Independent's Steve Richards (here) and the BBC's Nick Robinson (here) about the coverage of the police interview with Blair. Richards's key charge is this:

The BBC is not anti-Labour or pro-Tory, but unable to take a stand on policy issues, and, wanting to make waves, it has inadvertently become anti-politics.

Robinson responds thus:

This simply won’t do. A senior police officer in charge of an investigation which is unprecedented in British political history has stated publicly that his inquiry team has "significant and valuable material" and hints that charges may follow..... The BBC is not being “anti politics” when it reports those facts.

I'm with Nick. The idea that the police interview was unremarkable is ridiculous.

I think that cynicism about politics and politicians is dangerous and both the media (the BBC is less guilty than most) and politicans can encourage it. A fightback is in order. But if I were in charge of the fightback strategy, the loans affair is not the event I would pick.

Comments

[jimmy]

Daniel - I'm enjoying your writing, as always. This article, though, is a little disappointing.

I think it's a mistake to summarise Steve Richards' commentary in the phrase "the idea that the police interview was unremarkable".

I read Steve's article this morning, and found his arguments more nuanced. This is a good passage:

"The normally sober World Tonight ran an overexcited report followed by an interview with Roy Hattersley, who is a Blair critic, and then an interview with a columnist who is well-known for believing that Blair is corrupt."

and

"Of course, it is a big news story when the police interview a prime minister, even if it was inevitable and predictable. But the much bigger twist of the day was that he was interviewed as a witness rather than under caution."

I think Steve was spot-on with the thesis he was actually offering. Namely, this: the BBC almost always finds someone with a countervailing opinion, and gives them an easy run, regardless of the veracity of their views. This does indeed produce cynicism among viewers, surely that's obvious.

(On a side note, there are some issues where countervailing views are missing or very weak - eg. on most foreign policy issues, particularly in the Middle East).

I don't imagine you disagree, but somehow you've painted Steve's article as focussing on the police inquiry; it didn't, and the view he takes is different from the way you characterised it.