Page 277 - Culture Society and the Media

CULTURE, SOCIETY AND THE MEDIA 267
public as a whole was blaming the Pakistani population…[and]…conversation
was mainly centred on the lines of “send them home”’. However, in an editorial
published four days later the Post said that the Pakistani population as a whole
cannot be blamed for the outbreak and castigated the ‘few hooligans’ who had
been smashing windows and otherwise threatening innocent Pakistanis and ‘who
must be given to understand that they have not even the tacit support of the
decent majority’ (Butterworth, 1966, p. 352 and p. 356). Butterworth concludes
that the Post often spoke with two voices: ‘in its news reporting and presentation
it appeared to give circulation to the kind of happenings and opinions which
were likely to raise tension and were being condemned in its editorials’ (ibid., p.
360), whereas the Post defended its news coverage by saying that in the news
columns it ‘gives the news as it is, not as we should like it to be’ (ibid., p. 358).
In contrast, editorial comment often seems to veer towards news as we would
like it to be’. For example, when Colour and Citizenship (Rose et al., 1969) was
published most editorial attention was devoted to the survey finding (since
challenged) that only 10 per cent of the population was racially prejudiced,
which was regarded by the leader writers as evidence in support of the British
reputation for tolerance. On the other hand, they paid little attention to the
extensive documentation of racial disadvantage contained elsewhere in the book.
If we agree that a leader writer may wish to argue one case rather than another—
for example, to establish the existence of racial harmony rather than racial
conflict—and may even emphasize those facts which lend weight to his argument
and play down those facts which would run counter to his argument, it seems
strange that such selection or weighting is regarded as out of the question on the
news pages. ‘News values’ it would seem are sacrosanct or somehow beyond the
editor’s control. As the Press Council put it in response to the evidence submitted
by the Community Relations Council to the Royal Commission on the Press: ‘It
is a complete misconception of the function of the Press to imagine that it can or
does control what is news’ (Guardian, 9 May 1977).
To say as did the Yorkshire Post that they print the ‘news as it is’, or as did the
Press Council that news is inviolable, is in effect to say that if the contents of
news pages are ugly this is because the press acts as a mirror faithfully reflecting
the ugliness of society. Even if this analogy is appropriate it should be
remembered that a mirror does not only reflect what is ugly. But it would be
much more appropriate to visualize the media acting as a searchlight,
illuminating some areas while leaving others in shadow. What appears in the pages
of a newspaper is obviously a very small proportion of what happens in the
world outside. But it does not follow that the few ‘stories’ that are printed are
representative of the many stories that reach the newspaper office, let alone of
those that do not even get that far. A newspaper must have some general criteria
to determine which stories are reported and which discarded, though such rules
may change dramatically. For example, according to Breichner, news coverage of
American blacks by all news media ‘constituted almost a boycott or censorship of
positive, favourable news—not always by intent, but certainly by habitual neglect’