Examination of Witnesses (Questions 264-279)
11 JANUARY 2005
MR BOB
SATCHWELL, MR
ROBIN ESSER,
MR MARK
EASTON AND
MS CLAIRE
POWELL
Q264 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies
and gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for joining us for this
session which, as you know, is very largely in relation to our
inquiry into terrorism and community relations. I think you well
understand we just have a couple of questions at the end we would
like to throw in which relates to our other inquiry on anti-social
behaviour, which would be helpful. Perhaps I can say at the outset
that we have a number of apologies from Members of the Committee
who are actually engaged in other Standing Committees and debates
in the House—like Gwyn Prosser, for example. Perhaps we
could start, for the record, with you introducing yourselves and
then I will get under way. Mr Esser?
Mr Esser: I am Robin Esser, I
am the Executive Managing Editor of the Daily Mail and,
as such, responsible, among other things, for editorial policy
and I sit on a number of committees where I represent national
newspapers, including the Media Emergency Forum and what used
to be known as the D Notice Committee in the Ministry of Defence.
Mr Satchwell: I am Bob Satchwell,
Executive Director of the Society of Editors, which has members
in all sections of the local, regional and national newspapers
and some in broadcasting. Obviously, because of there are more
of them, there are more members who are regional newspaper editors.
Mr Easton: I am Mark Easton, I
am Home Editor of the BBC, I am a correspondent primarily but
I am also, effectively, head of our social affairs unit which
includes within it the home affairs unit, which covers a lot of
the stories we will be talking about today.
Ms Powell: I am Claire Powell,
I am one of the Chief Advisers to the BBC's Editorial Policy team.
I am here in place of the Controller of Editorial Policy, Stephen
Whittle, who unfortunately has got rather severe flu. I tend to
deal with issues of harm and offence.
Q265 Chairman: Thank you very much. If
I can start with general questions to each of you, most of the
evidence that we have received as a Committee into this inquiry
on the impact of terrorism on community relations suggests that
community relations have worsened over the past few years, and
particularly since the events of 9/11. I wonder, from your perspective
in the media, whether you would agree with that assessment. Mr
Esser?
Mr Esser: I would doubt whether
Islamaphobia and similar sorts of things have increased that much
since 9/11, but what 9/11 did, obviously, was put it in the forefront
of people's minds to up it in the agenda. If you compare the treatment
of Muslims in this country during the 1970s and 1980s, where Home
Office statistics show that assaults on those people were much
more frequent than they are today, when you had members of the
National Front roaming the streets looking for targets to beat
up and, indeed, to an extent where you had an attitude on the
part of the police which was aggressive towards Muslims and other
Asian and black people, I think the situation has actually improved.
I think one of the reasons for that was the one identified by
Paul Dacre in his written evidence to you, the result of the Stephen
Lawrence case and the amount of attention the media gave to that
(particularly of course the Daily Mail) and the resultant
MacPherson inquiry which, I believe, has improved the attitude
of the police in all communities beyond all measure.
Mr Satchwell: Having read some
of the evidence you have heard, obviously that seems to be the
perception of certain groups within the community. Certainly from
talking to our members I do not detect that. After the disturbances
which happened a couple of years ago, there were editors of local
papers who, in fact, said that it was not a racial issue or a
faith issue but there were issues to do with deprivation in those
communities. In fact, there were some instances of national papers,
including the Daily Mail, which looked behind those disturbances.
I think the other thing which has perhaps been good since 9/11
is that it has made the media think about some of these issues
more carefully. I think there are many cases now of editors having
better and closer relationships with minority communities in the
areas of their circulation and, also, in terms of things which
happen on a national level. I think that can only be good. Also,
the issues which are still frequently raised by minority groups,
particularly Muslim groups, have been put to a much wider audience
than ever before, partly because of 9/11—and particularly
the idea that, maybe, Muslim groups might be blamed. There were
papers—certainly those papers in areas with high Muslim
populations and indeed in certain national papers, The Sun
and The Daily Mail, again, were two examples—where
they immediately rushed in to investigate the position and to
write very detailed pieces explaining more about Islam and suggesting
very clearly that 9/11 should not be blamed on all Muslims. So
to that extent I think there were some good things which came
out of those events.
Mr Easton: I think that community
relations in its widest sense are under strain in this country.
I think Britain is quite an atomised country, at the moment. I
think social cohesion is a very real issue for many people who
do feel very isolated within their communities. In respect of
what we are talking about here in relation to the Muslim community,
I think there is, as my colleagues have said, a perception among
many that community relations have worsened or, at least, that
Islamaphobia is an increasing problem, and there has been some
data—and I am sure you are aware of it—that suggests
that the number of attacks and racial incidents involving Muslims
has gone up, although there is counter evidence as well. What
is undoubtedly true is that the British public or the electorate
at large does have significant concerns, at the moment, about
"foreigners"; effectively, in relation to asylum, immigration
and international terrorism. I think it is a genuinely salient
issue for many, and I think that obviously has had a big impact
on political processes as well—indeed, flowing on from that,
in the way that we cover the world round us. So, in brief, yes,
I think Britain is a relatively atomised society and I think community
relations are not as bad as they once were but I think there is
a specific problem with regard to the Muslim community, for reasons
which are self-evident since 9/11, and I do think there is a wider
concern about the way that our multicultural nation is developing;
people do feel that they need reassurance in some respects.
Q266 Mr Taylor: Chairman, could I just
ask Mr Easton if he could clarify what he means by "atomised"?
Could you help me with that?
Mr Easton: It is about whether
people are part of a community, whether they are linked in: they
know the name of their next-door neighbour, they know the name
of the man who they buy their paper from; it is all about that
kind of stuff. There is quite a lot of evidence that that social
capital—another jargon phrase—has actually fallen
away over the last 20, 30 or 40 years and, as a result, we have
become rather more individualistic and tend to lock ourselves
away watching our own television in our own house or sitting at
a computer screen rather than engaging with the wider community.
Q267 Chairman: Do you think, Mr Easton,
the way the media as a whole has covered issues like asylum and
illegal immigration has contributed to that concern about foreigners
that you talk about? If not, where has it come from?
Mr Easton: I can talk about broadcasting
in respect of that. Or do you want a general point about the media
generally?
Q268 Chairman: I would be interested
in your views about broadcasting and the media as a whole. I will
come to television in a moment.
Mr Easton: Undoubtedly, people's
opinions and views on asylum and immigration, and indeed on international
terrorism, are a consequence of what they see and hear in their
newspapers, on the radio and on the television. Yes, of course,
we play a massive part in that. Whether we lead or follow, in
terms of what we cover, how we cover it and the responsibilities
(I am sure you will want to talk further about this) we have in
respect of that coverage, I would argue that I think there is
a real issue about asylum in this country. The numbers of people
who have been seeking asylum in Britain, until very recently,
had been rising very dramatically. I think many people in the
public, and indeed many politicians, were concerned about that
and it has become a very real issue and one which, obviously,
we have been reflecting in our coverage. I am sure—and we
can talk more about this later, perhaps—that sometimes in
the tone of our coverage we have contributed to a sense that the
problem is greater than it is. But I think we have come a long
way, actually, over the last few years. I am happy to talk more
about that later.
Q269 Chairman: What is striking about
this is that when we were planning this inquiry we did not initially
plan to have a session on the media (it was not part of our diary
and that is why our invitation was so late), but we decided to
have a session because in every single evidence session those
giving evidence—not just the Muslim community but Christian
churches, other organisations and other faith groups—all
said that part of the problem is the media coverage of terrorism
and related issues. What we have heard this afternoon is a remarkably
complacent statement from each of you about the situation there.
We have had a lot of evidence saying the media, locally, nationally
and broadcast as well as print, has a direct influence. You must
be aware of that. Can you explain to the Committee why there should
be such a difference of view between the witnesses we have had,
the evidence we have received and your own views as, really,
quite senior and important media executives?
Mr Satchwell: I am sorry if you
get the impression of complacency. Far from it—and I do
not think that is the case anywhere in the media. What I think
I said was that having read some of the evidence you have had
there is this difference between perception and what I would see
as the reality. That does not mean to say that you have not got
to deal with the perception, which of course you have. I think
what appears to be there does not seem to mix with the fact that
each day in this country something like 35 million people read
newspapers still, both regional and national daily newspapers,
and of course there are a lot more who read the weekly press.
It just occurs to me that if these papers have been so bad in
their reporting, when it is going to so many people, there would
be a much clearer breakdown in community relations—there
would be riots almost every day, if the impression that the papers
were creating was that bad. That is what worries me. I certainly
would not want you to think that the industry is in any way complacent,
and there are many things which are going on to deal with those
perceptions. There are two reasons for that: one is that, obviously,
there is a clear ethical reason why anyone in the media has got
to get it right and to make sure the message gets over in a correct
manner, and, secondly, there is a clear commercial reason why
anybody in the media, and that includes broadcasting as well as
print, cannot afford to lose credibility with an increasing population
of minority communities. That is particularly the case with regional
papers where there is a very high percentage of people from minority
ethnic communities.
Mr Esser: I would echo Bob's remarks.
I certainly did not intend to sound complacent; we are not complacent.
We are, as Paul Dacre said in his evidence, conscious every single
day of our responsibilities here. We also, incidentally, depend
very, very heavily indeed on the Muslim population for the distribution
of our newspapers; a very high proportion of newsagent shops are
run by Muslim people. So there is a very sound commercial reason
for being balanced. It is a human frailty, as we all know, from
time immemorial, to blame the messenger for the bad news. There
was a great Latin phrase nou-me-langere in which when arriving
with bad news the unfortunate messenger suggested that he did
not have his head chopped off; that it was not his responsibility.
This is quite a natural human thing; it is easy to blame the messenger
for the bad news.
Q270 Chairman: Can we go into one of
the issues that arises? It is, of course, the case that not all
but much of the terrorism that has been preoccupying the world
in the last few years has been carried out by people who claim
a theological Islamic or Muslim justification for what they are
doing, even though we all recognise, as you have all said in your
evidence, that that is not representative of the Muslim community
as a whole in this country or worldwide. Yet a number of parts
of the media regularly use phrases like "Islamic terrorist",
"Islamic militant" or "Islamic activist".
It has been put to us in evidence that the use of language in
that form actually has the effect, for the majority of the community,
of creating the view that all Muslims belong to some religion
where terrorism is integral to the religion. Can I ask each of
you again: is it justified to use that sort of linkage of language
if the effect of it is to make the wider population and Muslims
to feel they are all being tarred with the same brush?
Mr Easton: The short answer is
no, it is not. The first thing I have to say is I think that language
is actually extremely problematic. It is very difficult to find
phrases and words which adequately define what you have just been
talking about that do not offend somebody. For instance, there
was a time when we would have used the phrase "Muslim terrorist",
not even "Islamic terrorist". I think it is a long time
since we have done that. I would hesitate to say we have not done
it—we may have done—but certainly I think people would
be very concerned if a phrase like that was used now, and it was
regarded as inappropriate. However, in finding a phrase that adequately
explains the religious and cultural motivation of al-Qaeda—indeed
the use of strict interpretation of Koranic text to justify attacks
and so on—I think it is important in how we describe those
things that we give people an understanding of that. We have not
yet, I think, found the right phrase to do that, and we work very
hard with groups within the Muslim community to find phrases that
are both explanatory and acceptable, and cause offence as little
as possible. The rule of thumb that we have tried to use is not
to label when we can, so that we would say "individuals commit
terrorist acts" but we will try not to say that they are
a terrorist, or that people can be linked to al-Qaeda and that
al-Qaeda is an extreme or radical Islamic group, or Islamist group.
The very word "terrorist", I think, is unhelpful and
we have tried—and indeed Claire can talk more about this
in terms of our guidelines—to help journalists find ways
round it. For instance, we come in for quite a lot of stick for
not describing ETA as a terrorist group or, indeed, the PLO. We
prefer to find things that are factual and neutral to describe
those things. I have to say I think we really have worked incredibly
hard over the last three or four years (and I hope this does not
sound complacent either) and I do not think we have come to any
great conclusions but to try and find phrases which can define
what we are talking about.
Ms Powell: As Mark rightly says,
terminology and language are, perhaps, the most difficult things
that we struggle with at the moment. We want to inform our audiences,
we want to talk in terms that they understand, but nobody wants
to fall back on lazy terminology or clichéd terminology.
It is an on-going effort to try and find the correct terms for
each different group that appears. Some acts we could attribute
to al-Qaeda, some not. In the past, a terrorist group would usually
claim responsibility and say what their purpose was. We are now
dealing with a terrorist landscape, if you like, which is very,
very different from that in which I was brought up during the
70s and 80s. This is a wholly different grouping of terrorist
cells, which I think the security services themselves struggle
with at times on how to define, how to actually clarify what each
individual group has as a purpose.
Q271 Chairman: You would be fairly confident,
would you, that the BBC—not in `phone-ins and things like
that—itself would not be using the sort of loose expressions
like "Islamic terrorists" which have been criticised
in evidence to us?
Ms Powell: Again, I think it would
be impossible to say I would be very confident that we would never
use that. As editorial policy for the whole of the BBC we have
very regular meetings to discuss this very issue, in which we
consult with Muslim groups—of which, obviously, there are
many different voices in the Muslim community. No one has yet
come up with that one succinct phrase which could not only lessen
offence to the Muslim audiences but, also, explain to a wider
audience what we are actually talking about. It is something that
I think we have to keep working towards.
Q272 Chairman: You do not talk about
"Catholic terrorism" in Northern Ireland.
Ms Powell: In a way we do not
have to because the IRA were very, very self-descriptive and we
knew what the IRA were about. On the other hand, we might at times
talk about "Christian extremist" or "Christian
fundamentalist" if that were appropriate, and in our own
guidelines we actually say that we should only use a term such
as "Islamic fundamentalism" if we would also use "Christian"
or, say, "Hindu fundamentalism".
Q273 Chairman: The Mail does quite
regularly use phrases like "Islamic militant" or "Islamic
terrorist", or whatever, so you are obviously quite comfortable
with that description. Is that because you believe it to be factually
correct or do you believe it does not really matter if that has
a labelling effect on the Muslim community as a whole?
Mr Esser: No. I think it is, as
the BBC has said, an on-going educative programme. I am not happy
with any loose term which appears in the Daily Mail, and
we try wherever possible not to use that. We do use "al-Qaeda",
for obvious reasons, we do use "fundamentalist" but
we were among the first to point out that many religions, including
Christianity, have been manipulated by the unscrupulous, and that
the extremists of the Muslim world show little respect for the
traditions of Islam. We are not complacent and we work constantly
to make sure that the distinction between followers of Islam and
the terrorists is plain. I think we have a long way to go before
we achieve the ideal.
Q274 Chairman: You do not have to look
far in the Daily Mail to find an article that will link
terrorism, asylum seekers and Muslims all in the same article.
Mr Esser: I have not come across
one for sometime, but doubtless you will have some examples.
Q275 Chairman: Friday 23 April 2004,
a front page story springs to mind, which talks about "Now
we free terrorists. Court agrees al-Qaeda asylum seeker is threat
to Britain" and goes on to accuse supporters and members
of al-Qaeda with providing false documents to young British Muslims.
That is a pretty direct hit on every one of the Daily Mail's
key targets. You made the point in your evidence, which I think
is a reasonable point to make, that there is a distinction between
labelling an entire community and being concerned, for example,
about the management of the asylum system. Our own Committee has
produced some pretty hard-hitting reports about the management
of the asylum system; it is a legitimate area of discussion. Is
there not a problem in linking together terror, asylum and Muslim
in one story, in that the wider public may just simply say, "Well,
that is the Muslim population; that is all foreigners; we should
be right to be afraid of foreigners", as Mr Easton was suggesting
people are?
Mr Esser: I think there is a tendency
to underestimate the intelligence of the audience. This is an
audience which has today reached the eight million mark of funds
to relieve the largely Muslim orphans of the tsunami disaster.
That is the biggest response from any newspaper's audience. I
think it shows that the Daily Mail's audience and that
of many other newspapers are compassionate, do not regard all
Muslims as being beyond the pale and are prepared to dig deep
into their pockets to help them. You will probably recall that
our front page which began the appeal showed a picture of a clearly
Asian child, who I believe was also from a Muslim family. I do
not think that on a day-to-day basis our audience is confused
between those various groups of people, but, again, I am not complacent.
I speak with Muslim leaders about articles and stories in the
Daily Mail most weeks, sometimes two or three times a week,
and we have a very productive conversation. If they believe we
have stepped over the mark I make absolutely sure that our people
know that that is their view; I send notes round to our reporters,
to our sub-editors and to our executives to increase our awareness
of these problems.
Q276 Chairman: Thank you very much. Mr
Easton, a final question, if I may, to you, in this section. One
of the things that came up again in evidence to us has been the
number of references to television as provoking responses against
the broader Muslim community. One might expect, if you are a Labour
MP, as I am, to have a good pop at the Daily Mail as a
traditional target, but actually when we had evidence from young
people, when we had evidence from a Catholic priest working on
the front line in one of the more divided communities it was television
that was regularly referred to as the source of stories and reporting
which left Muslims feeling isolated rather than the tabloid newspapers
or the broadsheet newspapers. Are you aware, as the BBC, of the
power, even in what you would regard as straightforward reporting
of a terrorist incident, to have that impact on community relations?
If so, have you ways of dealing with it or doing something about
it? Should you try and do something about it?
Mr Easton: Absolutely we should
and we do, and we take that responsibility very seriously. Yes,
of course, we in television know the enormous power that the box
has in people's lives. Clearly, moving pictures with commentary
behind them is one of the most powerful forms of media. We are
acutely aware. Indeed there are things I have already mentioned,
but there will be many more, I am sure, in this session, about
the attempts that we make to ensure that we are responsible in
the way that we cover these stories. That is absolutely part and
parcel of what we are and what we do. Again, Claire, I think you
could probably add some more on this. We spend an awful lot of
time and, indeed, licence-payers' money trying to ensure that
we have a dialogue with all sections of the community in Britain
and around the world to ensure that we do not create an impression
which is unfair. I think it is important to say that in everything
that we do do we are attempting to bring truth and understanding
to people's perceptions of the world around them. Sometimes those
truths are uncomfortable, sometimes the understanding is complicated
and treads on some toes and we try and simplify it for a wide
audience. We do our best.
Q277 Mrs Dean: Could I turn to Mr Esser,
first of all. In the written submission from the Daily Mail
you note that the media's attention is often deliberately drawn
by the Government and police to arrests of terrorist suspects.
Do you mean central Government?
Mr Esser: Information comes to
us from a wide spectrum of sources, sometimes yes, through central
Government, sometimes from the police and sometimes from politicians
who believe that the news would be good for either the community
or sometimes the party.
Q278 Mrs Dean: Are there particular departments
of government that you get information from?
Mr Esser: Where terrorism is concerned,
obviously, one's attention would probably be more directed towards
the Home Office as, in a sense, the department which deals with
terrorism. However, as I say, the sources are considerable and
widespread. Obviously, if a so-called tip-off is politically motivated
it could come from anywhere.
Q279 Mrs Dean: You say they come from
a variety of sources. Do you think police tip-offs are centrally
co-ordinated?
Mr Esser: The sort of information
we get comes sometimes from chief constables or their press officers,
sometimes from the Metropolitan and sometimes from individual
policemen.
|
