Concerning the myth of media variety and openness in Britain

Great Britain entertains - some say suffers from - one of the extremest media concentration in the Western world and proves thereby a kind of Gleichschaltung which is worrying for a society which sees herself as democracy.

Read, as one more example, the article by Paul Myerscough in the issue 37/20 of the LONDON  REVIEW OF BOOKS, which is freely accessible:

Paul Myerscough
Corbyn in the Media


Letters concerning Paul Myerscough's article "Corbyn in the Media":

Paul Myerscough refers to the BBC’s ‘dominant role in people’s reception of news and commentary’ (LRB, 22 October). The actual figures demonstrating that dominance are startling. Using data published by Ofcom and the official measurers of TV, radio and newspaper consumption, I have calculated that the average UK adult consumes 56.7 minutes of news and current affairs each day from UK sources; 39 per cent derives from TV, 29 per cent from radio, 18 per cent from newspapers and 14 per cent from online news sites. Because of the BBC’s super-dominance in TV and radio news and current affairs consumption (75 per cent and 85 per cent shares respectively), and its strong position online (nearly 50 per cent), the BBC’s overall share is 60.6 per cent, compared with 6.3 per cent for Murdoch’s newspapers, 5.7 per cent for the Mail group, 5.1 per cent for ITV, 4.2 per cent for Independent Radio News, 3.2 per cent for Sky News, 2.8 per cent for the Guardian (thanks to its online readership), 2.6 per cent for the Mirror group, 2.4 per cent for the Telegraph group, 2.4 per cent for the Express group and 1.2 per cent for Channel 4. No other provider has more than 1 per cent.

If any commercial organisation commanded a 60 per cent share of news consumption, there would be a national outcry, and demands that the organisation be broken up. But the BBC’s dominance – which has been growing steadily, as newspaper circulation declines and ITV News loses audience share – doesn’t merit even a mention in the government’s Green Paper on the BBC’s future. Of course if Myerscough is right that ‘the BBC’s institutional bias’ is now effectively in the Tories’ favour, that might explain their indifference to the situation. Meanwhile, the left seems primarily concerned about which of the newspaper moguls has a larger share of a disappearing readership.

David Elstein
London SW15

Like Paul Myerscough, I was struck by the different way the leaders’ speeches to the Labour and Tory Conferences were treated by BBC2’s Daily Politics. The studio guest for Cameron’s speech was Michael Heseltine; for Corbyn’s it was Lance Price, Alastair Campbell’s second in command as Blair’s spin doctor, and for several years now quite removed from the UK political arena running a French B&B. I complained to the BBC and received this reply:

    As well as being a highly experienced journalist and political commentator, Lance Price has held significant roles in the past for the Labour Party, most notably being their director of communications and overseeing their 2001 general election campaign. With this in mind, we felt he was well placed to give an informed analysis of Jeremy Corbyn’s conference speech. Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader was controversial, even within the party itself. Mr Price clearly stated on the programme that he was ‘not a fan’ of Mr Corbyn’s leadership, but we believe it was important to hear his views, as they represent a significant strand of thinking within the party and among Labour supporters.

It seems especially worrying that the BBC justifies the invitation to Price on the basis that Corbyn’s election was ‘controversial’. Is this not a case of the BBC positioning itself as arbiter of who is fit to be elected as Labour leader, just after record numbers of party members had voted for him?

Rosie Brocklehurst
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

Paul Myerscough uses two tropes which are increasingly common among Corbynistas. First, he identifies scepticism as being about an inability to value qualities beyond ‘seeming plausible’. There has been plenty of that, it’s true, and the voters are obviously a shallow lot for being influenced by it, almost as bad as the BBC for covering it. But he discounts the possibility that, for many on the left, the main problem with Corbyn is simply that they disagree with him, and feel that many of his views actually are – as opposed to merely portrayed as – some combination of simplistic, populist, outmoded and distasteful.

Second, Myerscough reserves special disappointment for the Guardian’s new editor and her ‘cadre of electoral realists’. Realism? Could anything be worse? Apparently it could, in this case ‘disdaining’ (i.e. disagreeing with) Corbyn’s supporters and alienating potential readers. Another view might be that the cadre represents the views of people like me who just want the more progressive party to have a chance. It’s hard not to think of the Scottish referendum, where questioning of the Yes campaign risked the most scornful charge of all: lack of optimism.

While Labour are having what I like to think of as a holiday from the voters, the Tories are trying to grab the centre ground. The SNP still appears to be the go-to party for genuine opposition to the government, and its level of organisation stands in sharp contrast to Corbyn’s flat-footed start. Maybe a hopeless media operation is another element of the new politics. Who knows? What is clear is that excuses for the next election are piling up early.

John McGowan
Lewes, East Sussex