In this sixth and final reflection Jonathan Dimbleby remembers how ITV[1. Formed in 1955 as a commercially-funded rival to the BBC, which was and is financed by a licence fee that was paid for by all households with a TV] was once a real rival to the BBC in Britain as a source of intelligent news and of investigative reporting. There was Alastair Burnet, who presented News at Ten and also edited The Economist during a distinguished career[1. The Irish Independent captured Sir Robin Day’s description of him as “the booster rocket that put ITN into orbit”]; there were programmes like Brian Walden’s Weekend World – that we highlighted two days ago – and which hosted extended and forensic interviews of politicians; and there was the investigative programme World in Action. ITV and ITN, remembers Dimbleby, exposed the blue asbestos scandal, nuclear waste issues at Sellafield, and began the exposure of the miscarriage of justice that put the Guildford Six in prison. It also forced a slightly complacent and old-fashioned BBC to raise its game. Regrettably, because of commercial pressures, ITV doesn’t offer programming of similar pedigree today. Instead – because viewers have so many alternatives – news is often sensationalised in order to attract any attention at all. But, as Jonathan Dimbleby concludes, there’s still BBC Radio 4 and its continuing commitment to Reithian[2. The BBC’s own summary of John Reith’s belief that the Corporation, for which he was the first director-general- must inform, educate and entertain] standards. Although I suspect that not absolutely everyone will agree that.

Watch the other clips from UnHerd’s interview with Jonathan Dimbleby.

In the fifth clip from our extended interview with Jonathan Dimbleby he expressed a similar wish for more people from universities, cultural institutions and commerce to take part in programmes like his own Any Questions? panel.

Click here for all of the clips from our Dimbleby interview.

• The danger of competition between rolling news channels producing a focus on the new rather than ‘what matters’…
• How modern technologies (where every reporter follows every other reporter’s opinion on Twitter and other social media) can produce a hive-likemindedness – a herd-like tendency that is exacerbated by the over-deployment of top reporting talents on multiple platforms, leaving them inadequate time to think freshly about a story…
• And the responsibility of mainstream broadcasters to keep challenging the strong desire in all of us – fed, argues Jonathan Dimbleby, by too many newspapers, columnists and wild-world-web platforms – to believe what we want to believe from narrowcast platforms with a mission to entertain rather than enlighten.

In today’s fourth clip (there are two more to come) the host of BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions? panel programme turns to the decline of the long-form TV interview – made most famous by Brian Walden on Sunday mornings (and for those feeling nostalgic at even the mention of the great Mr W’s name here is a jog down memory lane for you). In addition to arguing that these long and forensic examinations of a politician’s policies or prospective policies added to the quality of governance, Jonathan (from 3 minutes 41 seconds) notes that the simultaneous rise of the “chippy”, even “rude” political interviewer is actually a gift to the MP or minister. Politicians know that an unnecessarily hostile interviewer helps them, because some of the audience will start to feel more sympathetic to the target of the journalistic sneer. Donald Trump’s endless attacks on the press reflect his awareness, after all, that only the press rivals him for unpopularity and untrustworthiness. Personally, I think that an increasing proportion of the public, because of the anti-politics mood, enjoys seeing their ‘overlords’ getting Paxman’d. What is true, however, is that too many interviewers like the attention of the bright lights – and that risks taking attention away from the politician’s command of the subject matter – that should be in the spotlight and, under the great Mr Walden, nearly always was.

Conscious of human beings’ limited time to consume news – rather than read, exercise, rest or as Allan Mallinson recommends, study more history – this three minute clip concludes with his worry that there’s a tendency in all of us to choose to believe what we want to believe. While that tendency may have always existed it’s more of a danger when so many narrow-versus-broad-cast platforms (and that must include the Trump White House and his Twitter stream) are so ready to serve up what audiences want to consume. As David Frum warned – so pertinently – so much news is now little more than a subsidiary of the entertainment industry.

David Frum’s 2012 interview about the ‘Conservative Entertainment Complex’ is well worth your time btw…

Jonathan worries that scope for free and independent thinking is further endangered by the way that the BBC’s biggest journalistic names are now churned on multiple platforms – reporting their take on a story or subject to both old and new media platforms – one after another after another. This limits thinking time and opportunities for basic journalistic researching that might alter or at least enrich what is reported. He doesn’t pull his punches at the end of this second when he talks about how the BBC uses its best known and “really authoritative” editors:

“They have to keep talking. They’re wanted on the television. They’re wanted on radio. They’re wanted online. How they have time to think for themselves – to have those background conversations with people who give them a unique insight – I do not know. I fear looking and listening generally, they don’t have enough time.“

RELATED LINKS

• Jonathan Dimbleby’s interview for UnHerd was recorded on 12th July and his remarks also appear in our audio documentary on the news industry.
• The first clip in this series was published yesterday and captured Jonathan’s concern that competition between rolling news stations (and, he might have added, with social media feeds) can distract us from what matters – which is exactly the diagnosis of UnHerd’s launch video.

As part of our series on the news industry’s focus on the new, the controversial, the negative and the political – rather than the important, the consensual, the positive, and the cultural, technological and religious – we spoke to the veteran British journalist Jonathan Dimbleby about how journalism has changed during his time at the centre of British current affairs.

We’ll publish his observations in a series of video clips – beginning with his thoughts on how competition between 24/7 news platforms distracts us from what matters…

• Jonathan Dimbleby’s interview for UnHerd was recorded on 12th July and his remarks also appear in our audio documentary on the news industry.
• Clip two is now online: Listening to today’s constantly transmitting journalists, I worry they lack thinking time