Page 105 - An Introduction to Political Communication Second Edition

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

are explored in Chapter 7, the adversarial interview is best viewed
as an important, if sometimes flawed means of broadcast analysis
and interpretation of political rhetoric.
In all of the above-mentioned formats, the political journalist is
balancing the role of advocacy with the requirements of impartiality
set down by law and convention. There is now one type of
programme, however, in which the pundits can ‘come out’, as it were,
and say what they think—the political talk-show. The best example
of such a show on British television has seen Channel 4’s A Week In
Politics, which contains most of the elements listed above—reportage,
interviews, etc.—but also features the relatively new (for British
broadcasting) device of bringing together two pundits—Andrew
Rawnsley and the late Vincent Hanna—to chat in informal, relaxed
tones about the events of the week. The comments made are rarely
controversial, but they are subjective, and presented as such to the
viewer. The continuing proliferation of TV channels and journalistic
outlets, and the resulting decline in importance of any single channel,
is likely to mean greater efforts by the broadcasters to ‘subvert’ the
conventions of impartiality, and allow TV to approximate more
closely to the more overtly authored, opinionated forms of coverage
long established in the press.

THE EXPERTS

We note, finally, the participation in political journalism of non-
journalists: the politicians, of course, but also those who, by virtue
of scholastic achievement, or some other legitimating mechanism,
are defined as ‘experts’ on a particular political issue. These specialist
pundits are ‘qualified’ to speak on the issues, making sense of them
for the layperson. Like the educated elites of the early public sphere
(Habermas, 1989) they are called upon to share with us, the people,
their wisdom and learning. Their views are taken seriously precisely
because they have been defined as expert. I have written elsewhere
about patterns of access to television news on the subject of
East-West relations (McNair, 1988), noting there that these
experts—or ‘primary definers’, as Stuart Hall has called them (Hall
et al., 1978)—are not necessarily especially knowledgeable. The
point, from the journalists’ perspective, is that they are seen to be
expert, and can thus help to confirm the authority and credibility
of the news or current affairs programmes to which they contribute.

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