Memorandum by the Trades Union Congress
(TUC)
INTRODUCTION
1. The TUC represents 59 affiliated unions,
with a total membership of 6.47 million workers in a wide variety
of occupations and industries. Our unions include those representing
workers in the industries covered by this inquiry. The National
Union of Journalists represents editorial workers in both press
and broadcasting, among other workers. The Broadcasting, Entertainment,
Cinematograph Trade Union's membership includes workers in wide
variety of jobs in broadcasting. The Communication Workers Union
represents workers in cable television and communications technology
and Unite includes within its membership print workers and electricians
as well as other workers within these sectors.
2. Unions, their members and the TUC are
also the subject of extensive media interest and our evidence
draws on our perception of the ways in which this has changed
over recent years.
3. However, the main reason why we have
responded to the request for evidence is because our members,
like other members of the public, rely on the media as their principal
source of information, entertainment and, to some extent, education
and we do have concern about changes which we see taking place
in the areas covered by this inquiry.
4. We have long held that a free media and
a free trade union movement are essential requirements for a mature
democracy and that the erosion of media freedom, like the removal
of workers' rights to belong to a union of their choice, amounts
to a threat to democracy. Democracy is about choice and in order
to make a choice about the relative merits of government and opposition;
one policy as against another; and the effectiveness with which
public organisations are performing, voters need to have access
to reliable information and a range of views. Therefore changes
in access and reliability are matters that we think need to be
examined.
News providers agendas
5. The ways in which news is delivered and
ways in which it is received are changing now as profoundly as
at any time in history. The development and widespread use of
the Internet is, in our view, as significant as the growth of
television in the latter part of the twentieth century; the growth
of radio in the first part of that century; and even as significant
as the development of commercial printing much earlier.
6. It is now possible for any organisation,
large or small, national, international or local, private sector
or government to make its materials and views available direct
to the public at the click of a button and to reach their audience
as easily as the principal news-providing organisations can do.
7. Taking our own situation by way of example.
Our reports, news releases and even the verbatim reports of our
Congress are now available on line to anyone who cares to look.
We also have a website providing information to people with problems
at work; a site dealing with our growing workplace education services;
and we use the Internet as a means by which trade union activists
and officials can communicate with each other. Our individual
affiliates also have their own sites through which they communicate
both with members and the public.
8. In general, this increased access to
information is a very welcome development. Our greatest concerns
centre round the way in which service providers and repressive
regimes have worked together to prevent open access (the case
of AOL and the Chinese Government was highlighted at our 2006
Congress). Nevertheless, we do believe there are some areas in
which greater control by government is needed. For instance, we
have made representations to government specifically about the
Redwatch website which is run by Far Right extremists and which
encourages violence against those who oppose their views. These
issues are important but we recognise they fall outside the terms
of this inquiry.
9. What is relevant to the current inquiry
is the way in which news organisations have responded to the increased
availability of original sources and the development of the Internet.
The first point we have noted is that the news organisations themselves
are devoting much attention and considerable resources to the
development of their own Internet sites. They are building on
their existing news gathering resources and developing new approaches,
including the creation of systems through which they can have
a dialogue with their audience and the provision of additional
information to supplement reports on their main outlets, including
the updating of stories between editions.
10. We welcome the way in which organisations
like the BBC, through its own website, will regularly provide
links to original sources or the websites of organisations referred
to in their reports. More worrying, however is the decline in
the coverage given in newspapers and news bulletins to serious
reports produced by other organisations on the grounds that these
are easily available in full to those who care to look. We believe
that this is happening to a worrying degree and can lead to a
decline in the quality of public debate rather than enhancing
it.
11. The clearest example is the decline
in coverage of parliament. Twenty-five years ago the serious national
newspapers would provide daily reports of parliamentary debates
and during the conference season the same reporters who provided
this service would provide similar reports of our own Congress
and the party conferences. Today, whilst there is a parliamentary
channel devoted to such coverage, and whilst, as stated above,
it is easier to access verbatim reports of debates, newspapers,
the main news bulletins and newspapers will cover rarely cover
debates in any detail.
12. Inevitably, only those with a keen interest
in a particular subject will go to an original source for their
information and most people continue to rely for most of their
information on most issues on the established and trusted media
providers. Therefore, a decline in the main media sources acting
as "journals of record" is a matter for concern.
13. The other major development in recent
years has been the proliferation of broadcast channels, both radio
and television. There are now two "rolling news" channels,
with the BBC and Sky providing round the clock news programmes.
Radio Five Live has added greatly to the availability of news,
alongside sport, on radio. There has been the growth of digital
channels and widening access to alternative sources of broadcast
news, through the American channels, such as NBC, and now through
now Al-Jazeera. But, again, we would argue that, despite these
developments, it is essential that the main news providers, the
national press and main news bulletins on BBC and ITV, continue
to recognise their democratic responsibilities as the principal
sources for news for most people and that some of the developments
outlined below give cause for concern.
14. Rolling news has to update constantly
and as a result has tended to give the "immediate" greater
prominence than the "important". A story that previously
might have been considered by a reporter, subedited and carefully
presented with a view to balance, now needs to be presented instantly
and with an urgency that might not always be justified. There
is a need for headlines every 15 minutes and for those to change
in order to retain viewers' interest. High quality news coverage
is labour intensive and expensive and with strong commercial pressures
we believe that these services are not been given the resources
needed in order to maintain standards. The NUJ will provide further
specific evidence on this area.
15. Other changes that we have noted in
terms of broadcast news, both on the rolling news programmes and
on the main bulletins, in part perhaps as a result of the development
of rolling news, is the trend away from the considered piece by
a specialist reporter and towards the interview format with a
specialist correspondent being interviewed by a studio presenter.
Whilst we accept that there is a place for such a format, we do
not believe that necessarily provides the specialist with the
opportunity to explain the issues as clearly as they might if
they had the time and opportunity to put the issues into their
own words in a piece direct to camera.
16. The growth of mobile phones and especially
phones with cameras that can transmit images has led to a great
increase in media use of materials supplied by members of the
public. In general, such greater access is welcome, but such materials
should be used carefully as the users are not familiar with the
regulations and codes of conduct, which govern the behaviour of
professional journalists. The National Union of Journalists has
made a useful contribution to the discussion on this issue and
it is something that needs further public debate.
17. In terms of newspaper coverage, we have
noted a number of significant changes over recent years. The first
is the increase in the amount of newsprint. Virtually every national
newspaper has more pages now than it did two decades ago, with
all the serious papers consisting of a number of sections every
day of the week. The amount of "news" has however not
grown at the same pace, with many of the additional pages devoted
to "life-style" features or supplements related to particular
subjects such as sport, entertainment, holidays or property. Many
of these are linked directly to advertising opportunities. We
do not detect any direct influence of advertisers over editorial.
But there are clearly links between advertising and the subjects
covered editorially in such supplements. For instance, a supplement
featuring advertisements for teaching posts will inevitably contain
reports and features on education, thus giving topics in this
area a greater airing than those in a subject area less likely
to solicit advertising.
18. We have already referred to the disappearance
of parliamentary reports, and believe this is part of a wider
trend away from "straight" reporting of events. We believe
that the growth of broadcast news means that the national daily
newspapers no longer see their main job as being to inform readers
about the main events of the day—on the grounds that this
is information that they can get from elsewhere.
19. Broadsheet papers, with the exception
of the Financial Times, are now far more likely to give
prominence to "celebrity" and showbiz stories, which
once would have been covered only in the tabloid papers. In particular
The Times rarely has a serious political story on page
3. The Independent, almost invariably takes "an issue"
as the subject of its front page. A further development has been
the way in which some stories develop a momentum of their own,
simply because they are stories. Ten years after the death of
the Princess of Wales, the Daily Express regularly features
an aspect of her death as its main story of the day. For some
time the Big Brother television programmes dominated the pop paper
agenda and that continues to be the case with the Daily Star.
20. Perhaps the most significant feature
of recent times has been the rise of the commentator. Almost all
newspapers have had commentators for the earliest days of the
popular press. Many of them became famous well beyond their own
publications: Bernard Levin, Keith Waterhouse and Cassandra (William
Connor) for instance were all renown in their own eras. However
there are now more commentators than ever before. And whilst we
know from experience that there are commentators who do their
own research and talk to original sources before writing on a
subject, in many cases the impression comes across that commentators
are simply feeding off the material provided elsewhere in the
press, adding little original other than their own rhetoric.
NEWSGATHERING
21. On the issue of newsgathering, we have
noticed a number of significant changes. The first relates to
our own area of concern. This is the demise of the industrial
correspondent. Twenty-five years ago every national newspaper
including, The Sun and the Mirror, had a labour
desk with at least two specialist reporters. The Financial
Times had a team of five, who produced a page of stories every
day. Both ITN and the BBC-TV had two specialist industrial correspondents,
and there were labour reporters on IRN and BBC Radio. Today PA
and the FT are the only organisations with labour specialists,
with the Guardian, Times and, until earlier this year,
The Independent having journalists who covered both the
"labour beat" and another specialism.
22. Clearly the reduction in the number
of industrial disputes is a major factor in this, but it also
reflects a decline in the media's interest in workplace issues,
at the same time as coverage of financial matters has risen dramatically.
As we have said on other occasions a visitor from another planet
seeking to get an impression of life in the UK purely based on
newspaper and broadcasting news output would get the impression
of a people whose priorities were: politics, sport, crime, sex,
show business and share prices—the priorities within that
list would depend on which section of the media they chose to
look at most closely. The fact that most adults spend a considerable
amount of their time at work would scarcely come across at all.
The reasons for this are perhaps that workplace issues are more
difficult to cover than some of the others and that it is harder
to portray them in an interesting way. Nevertheless this is a
large part of people's lives and deserves a greater degree of
media coverage than it gets at present.
23. One feature of the way the industrial
correspondents worked was that they tended to get their stories
from out of the office. They were frequent visitors to the TUC
at Congress House, to union conferences, to the Department of
Employment and indeed to workplaces. A current feature of newsgathering
is that, Westminster aside, it is largely carried out from the
office. Commercial pressures on journalism mean that the idea
of "going out to find a story" is no longer the norm
for reporters covering domestic issues, aside from crime and sport,
though ironically as newspaper journalists have been more and
more desk bound, broadcast journalists and television correspondents,
in particular, are increasingly seen at outside locations. Twenty
years ago you were likely to encounter a newspaper journalist
at the scene of a story phoning-in copy and a television reporter
in the studio. Now the newspaper correspondent is likely to be
at a screen in the office whilst the television reporter will
be delivering a report from an apparently relevant location. The
appearance does not necessarily reflect the reality. As members
of the committee will be all too aware, the political correspondent
standing outside parliament on a Sunday evening broadcasting live
into a news bulletin is unlikely to have got their information
from inside the building, which will almost certainly have been
devoid of politicians for the preceding 48 hours and he or she
is likely to have made the journey from their desk purely to deliver
the "piece to camera".
24. More seriously we are aware of a worrying
trend particularly in local newspapers, where the NUJ tell us
of a decline in wage rates and a trend to use the growing number
of graduates in media studies as "interns", not even
paid the minimum rate, but expected to work for the experience
alone. We have made clear our total opposition to such attempts
to subvert minimum wage regulations in our evidence to the Low
Pay Commission, and are extremely concerned about the practice
in this sector, not just for the impact on the young people but
also for its effect on the quality of local journalism and what
that means for local communities, local government and local democracy.
It does appear to us that the driving force behind the decrease
in editorial resources in local newspapers arises from the monopoly
tendencies within the local press—particularly in terms
of local evening and weekly papers, most of which are now owned
by Trinity Mirror, Northcliffe, Newsquest and Johnson.
25. More generally the decline of investigative
reporting is a matter of concern. Increasing commercial pressures
in local and national journalism make it less likely that news
organisations will devote scarce resources to investigations that
might not produce results, especially in the short-term. And it
does seem that the number of serious issues discovered by newspapers
rather than by pressure groups is far less now than it was some
years ago.
Ownership, balance and diversity
26. You ask whether ownership has an impact
on editorial priorities. We are not in a position to supply direct
evidence demonstrating a link. But we cannot think of an instance
where a newspaper has taken a line contrary to the owners' interests.
On the other hand, the fact that the Murdoch-owned papers invariable
take an editorial line that is hostile to the European Union and
hostile to the BBC and, closer to home, rarely have any favourable
comments to make on work of the trade union movement, does indicate
a strong link between the views of the owner and the editorial
line of publications.
Protection of the public interest
27. We recognise the difficulty of obtaining
a balance between regulation and media freedom. Our particular
concerns in this regard are that the BBC is being squeezed by
being denied the opportunity to venture into areas where the commercial
sector wish to operate and, on the other hand, the obligation
to deliver value for money for licence fee payers. We made this
point in more detail in our submissions during the run up to the
BBC Charter Renewal. In our view the current settlement was inadequate
for those purposes and cuts in budgets are having a detrimental
effect on news services. We are concerned too about the reduced
resources put into ITN and its decline from the days when it provided
genuine competition to BBC news services. The future funding of
Channel 4, with its distinctive contribution to public sector
broadcasting, is also a matter of concern and, especially in this
context, its implications for the highly respected Channel 4 News.
28. We have long argued that openness is
the key to democratic decision-making and we welcomed the decision
a number of years ago to oblige newspapers to make clear their
links with organisations on which they were reporting. Thus when
The Times carries a report about Sky's spat with Virginmedia,
it is obliged to remind readers of the paper's link with Sky.
We think that this should be taken further and that newspapers
should be obliged to include in each issue of the paper, a statement
of their ownership structure and the name of editor. We do not
see why newspaper editors should be allowed a degree of anonymity
rightly denied to others in public life. This need not be too
long or detailed, but a reminder to readers of who ultimately
owns the paper they read.
CONCLUSION
29. We understand that change is inevitable
in the way the media deliver news and the way that people receive
their news. We believe that many of the recent developments are
positive and can enhance the public's understanding of issues.
But we are concerned about the detrimental effects on mainstream
provision. We are also worried about the potential breakdown in
the traditional divide in the UK media between the impartiality
of the broadcast media and the opinionated press. This divide
is well understood by the public and we believe is valued and
we would regard any moves to remove obligations to impartiality
on broadcasters as a seriously detrimental step.
30. We would be happy to elaborate on any
of these points should the Committee wish us to do so.
September 2007
| 
