Page 99 - An Introduction to Political Communication Fifth Edition

Intro to Politics Communication (5th edn)-p.qxp 9/2/11 10:55 Page 78

POLITICS IN THE AGE OF MEDIATION
in the form, first, of special correspondents. Like the political columnists of
the press, the correspondents are in a sense pundits although, unlike the
latter, their subjectivity and interpretative work must be confined to analys-
ing the situation, as opposed to instructing, and appealing to, the audience.
The BBC’s chief political correspondent Nick Robinson, for example, will
frequently be asked by the programme’s presenters to assess or make sense
of a political event, be it a party leadership crisis or a crucial debate in the
House of Commons. He will do so from a position of authority, based on his
track record as an ‘expert’ in broadcasting terms, and on the fact that he
clearly has access to reliable elite sources. In this respect he and his colleagues
trade on the same privileged access to elites enjoyed by the senior press
columnists, and build their status as pundits upon that access. Where press
pundits can say what they think about the parties, however, and even pre-
sume to advise them on a suitable course of action, Robinson and his
colleagues on public service channels must be satisfied with giving their
audiences an insiders’ view of ‘what is really going on’. Their opinions and
partialities on the substance of the issues must remain private. There are
subtleties of language and tone which can be used by a correspondent to
signify suspicion or distrust towards a politician, but such perceptions
cannot be made explicit.
In general, then, the presenters of main news programmes maintain a clear
distance from the events they are introducing to their audiences. They
announce the news, and the special correspondent or political editor defines
its meaning and significance. Some viewers of TV news may detect in a
presenter’s facial expression or voice tone an attitude towards the events
being represented, but when it occurs this is a deviation from the self-
proclaimed norm.

The political interview
The main context in which presenters may openly play a more active role in
the political process is when they have the opportunity to interview political
actors. The increased awareness of the importance of public relations by
political actors means, as we shall see in Chapter 7, that they routinely make
themselves available to the electronic media for interview whenever there is
a news story which concerns them or on which they are particularly
competent to speak. In the early days of broadcast journalism such
interviews were rare, and were pursued with a tooth-grinding deference on
the part of the journalist, who would function essentially as a cue for the
politician to make a series of pre-prepared, uncontested points. ITN, when it
came on air in the 1950s, was the first British news organisation seriously to
challenge this style, with Robin Day in the vanguard. His aggressive
interviewing style became commonplace, and is now pursued even by presenters
on peak-time news programmes, much to the chagrin of some politicians.

78