Page 110 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

THE MEDIA AS POLITICAL ACTORS

In a notorious case of this technique in action, BBC Newsnight
presenter Jeremy Paxman once asked a Conservative minister
exactly the same question fourteen consecutive times and still failed
to get the straight answer he wanted, thereby communicating a
powerful message about the politician’s prognostication and
evasiveness. At other times interviewers have crossed the line
from legitimate questioning into the realm of rudeness and self-
importance, elevating the demonstration of their own inquisitorial
cleverness over the carrying out of the journalistic tasks at hand. On
balance, however, and in the face of intensively deployed public
relations techniques (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 the above formats, the political journalist is balancing the
role of advocacy with the requirements of impartiality set down by
law and convention. There is now a 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 examples of such a show on
British television have been Channel 4’s A Week In Politics, which
contained most of the elements listed above – reportage, interviews,
etc. – but also featured 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; and the BBC’s Midnight Hour, frequently
presented by the opinionated Andrew Neil (this programme was
replaced in 2003 by This Week, also headed by Andrew Neil
and with a similar format). The comments made are rarely
controversial, but they are subjective and are 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 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

89