Page 102 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

THE MEDIA AS POLITICAL ACTORS

about the Conservative or Labour parties, however, and even presume
to advise them on a suitable course of action, Goodman, Oakley and
their collegues on other 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 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
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 to seriously
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. Presenters such as Nicholas Witchell and Trevor
McDonald, once rightly perceived as rather meek when confronted
by a senior politician, now routinely engage in quite aggressive
questioning. Interviewing styles which used to be reserved for left-
wing anti-heroes like Arthur Scargill and Ken Livingstone are now
directed towards government ministers, senior opposition figures,
and other respected members of the political establishment.
That peak-time presenters with mass audiences should pursue such
a confrontational relationship with political actors is not to be

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