Memorandum submitted by David Hutchison,
Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, Glasgow Caledonian University
(PDB 7)
It is not possible to isolate news and current
affairs broadcasting from press journalism. It is not immediately
obvious that post-devolution Scottish domestic issues have necessarily
taken up more space and time. What is radically different is this:
before devolution when Scottish health, education or transport
was being discussed, then it was discussed as a Scottish Office
responsibility, so spokespersons either from the government, or
from the opposition parties, were inevitably members of the Westminster
parliament. Now such individuals are members of the Scottish Executive
or MSPs. This means that the visibility both in print and on the
airwaves of Scottish MPs, who have no ministerial or opposition
party front bench responsibilities, has been diminished.
Scottish broadcasting has historically suffered
from the consequences of the opt-out approach almost from the
inception of radio. In a highly centralised system, it has been
the function of the regions and national regions to produce material
which in the main is distinctive to these regions. In television
news and current affairs this has meant Scottish news and Scottish
current affairs, a recipe which has built into it the danger of
parochialism.
The ideal model for mature broadcasting is one
where the broadcaster takes responsibility for presenting the
full range of news and current affairs to its audience. This is
the model on which Radio Scotland has operated for a number of
years: it combines international, UK and Scottish news and comment,
drawing on the resources of the BBC throughout the world. The
way forward must surely be to seek ways of gradually applying
the Radio Scotland model more widely, so that television news
and current affairs broadcasting in Scotland is not obliged to
be overtly Scottish but is expected to find a way of using Scotland
as a base for talking about the wider world.
The first point to be made is that any serious
discussion of this topic requires a solid evidential base, something
that it is simply impossible to provide in the time available.
Furthermore, for such material to be of value, it would need to
include analysis of broadcasting during a period pre-devolution
as well as analysis of a period post-devolution. It is not clear
that all the archive material is readily accessible.
Given these difficulties, what is offered here
is inevitably impressionistic.
It is not possible to isolate news and current
affairs broadcasting from press journalism: the two feed off each
other and share personnel, despite the impartiality constraints
which are imposed on the broadcasters. It is not apparent to me
that post-devolution Scottish domestic issues have necessarily
taken up more space and time—other than during crises, or
at important historic junctures—although I suspect that
may be the case to a limited degree. What is radically different
is this: before devolution when Scottish health, education or
transport was being discussed, then it was discussed as a Scottish
Office responsibility, so spokespersons either from the government,
or from the opposition parties, were inevitably members of the
Westminster parliament. Now such individuals are members of the
Scottish Executive or MSPs. This means that the visibility both
in print and on the airwaves of Scottish MPs, who have no ministerial
responsibilities or opposition party front bench responsibilities,
has been markedly diminished. That is an inevitable consequence
of devolution, although the overall visibility of Scottish politicians
in the UK media, it should be noted, has markedly increased since
the election of the Labour government in 1997 and the election
of a Scottish leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Scottish broadcasting—as opposed to the
press—has historically suffered from the consequences of
the opt-out approach almost from the inception of radio. In a
highly centralised system, it has been the function of the regions
and national regions—to use the BBC's terminology—to
produce material which in the main is distinctive to these regions.
In television news and current affairs this has meant Scottish
news and Scottish current affairs, a recipe which has built into
it the danger of parochialism, a fact well illustrated at times
of major UK or international events when both Reporting Scotland
and Scotland Today, for example, can see irredeemably trivial,
through no fault of their own.
The ideal model for mature broadcasting is one
where the broadcaster takes responsibility for presenting the
full range of news and current affairs to its audience. This is
the model on which Radio Scotland has operated for a number of
years. Good Morning Scotland can be criticised—there
is, for example, the almost neurotic compulsion of some of its
presenters to seek to be witty—but it is a well produced
programme which combines international, UK and Scottish news and
comment, drawing on the resources of the BBC in Scotland, the
UK, and throughout the world. Radio Scotland is free to pursue
this approach in all of its news and current affairs output, making
continuous judgements about the proper weight to be given to material
in each of these three categories. This option is also open to
those commercial radio stations which seek to follow it, as it
is to the press. But it is not generally available to television
in Scotland at the moment, for the structural reasons outlined
above, and that—not the way in which it reports politics
post-devolution—is its major problem. It may not be appropriate
to seek to reopen the Scottish Six debate—or to extend
it into ITV—but the present position is inevitably bound
to remain unsatisfactory. The addition of the Newsnight
opt-out, admirable as much of the journalism on it has been, is
not a truly satisfactory answer, for a number of reasons, including
the disruption to Newsnight itself and the fact that most
people, who might find the material presented of value, have gone
to their beds by the time it appears on-screen.
The way forward must surely be to seek ways
of gradually applying the Radio Scotland model more wisely, so
that television news and current affairs broadcasting in Scotland
is not obliged to be overtly Scottish—which in the political
sphere must inevitably mean obliged for the most part to be Holyrood
oriented—but is expected to find a way of using Scotland
as a base for talking about the wider world, while not seeking
to replicate UK network broadcasting in these areas. That, it
has to be said, is a less daunting task than once it might have
been, given the decline in current affairs broadcasting, particularly
at peak times, on BBC 1 and Channel Three.
28 November 2001
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