In the last 6 months the MST has hosted 30 public debates, on news coverage of subjects including: the McCanns, Burma, climate change, MMR, Meredith Kercher, Northern Rock, Islam, Lord Browne, political spin and gang violence.
Kevin Marsh (Director of BBC College of Journalism) reflected on Tony Blair’s ‘feral beasts’ speech and the state of the media. David Elstein (broadcaster, Chairman - Broadcasting Policy Group) critiqued a ‘credulous BBC’ following the Queengate controversy. Charlie Beckett (Director, POLIS, LSE) felt that Alan Yentob had been cavalier with his audience during the ‘noddies’ affair. Vincent Campbell (Lecturer, Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester) praised the adversarial nature of our press and commented that ‘society would be far more adversely affected if we returned to the era of sacerdotalism and subservience to public figures’. Nicholas Jones (journalist) remarked after Brown became PM that ‘trusted journalists will continue to be well served by Brown and his coterie of trusted aides to the detriment of political journalism and political accountability.
On Panorama’s programme about the Dangers of Wifi, Dr Paddy Regan, a specialist in Radiation and Environmental Protection at Surrey University, said that while the programme had opened a useful discussion, it did so by using 'scare tactics' and 'emotive words'. Professor Les Hatton strongly objected to the programme’s attempts to discredit the WHO scientist and Professor Tony Davies from Kingston University felt words like 'electromagnetic smog' were just used to frighten people. The programme has since been criticised by the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit.
In a discussion about the impact of Burma’s citizen journalists, Ethan Zuckerman – from Global Voices online – pointed out that ‘the key to getting information out of Burma wasn't the Internet, but was the ability to record digital media’. Its impact, Zuckerman said, is likely to be long rather than short term, mobilizing ‘global public sentiment against the junta’. Aye Chan Naing , Executive Director of the Democratic Voice of Burma said the images from Burma had ‘shocked the whole world’ but worried that, following the crackdown, ‘no image [meant] no news’.
After coverage of Julie Spence’s police report about the impact of immigrants on Cambridgeshire, Keith Best, Chief Executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, commented that ‘Poor statistics, ignorance about the allocation of housing and eligibility for public benefits and the real lives and different categories of migrants ensures banality and a breeding ground for xenophobia and prejudice’ – all of which had been exacerbated, Best said, by politicians talking tough, which in turn has driven damaging media coverage.
When The Observer reignited fears about the dangers of MMR vaccinations Dave Rawling told the MST that ‘there can be no justification for raising these fears again’ and ‘the result of the media hype would appear to have been an increased number of young children suffering unnecessarily from measles, mumps and rubella’. Dr Jennifer Best (retired virologist) says that parents have been left confused by the media coverage, particularly because ‘the media have given more coverage to anti-vaccine campaigners than to scientists who know about vaccines’.
We are very grateful for these and other comments, which have helped to inform debate about media coverage and will, we hope, encourage greater self-consciousness within the media.