The media today

The poor old BBC is being accused of political bias and leaning too much towards New Labour. Not exactly a new revelation but to some extent possibly true. But a point which is never raised, and in defence of the BBC, it must be said that most of the main Fleet Street titles lean or have leaned towards the Conservatives and I always get the impression that the titles which have jumped ship wouldn't need too much of a push to jump again. The only time that I have listened to the Today programme was when I was interviewed on it regarding a story in Majorca. I was later criticised in one national newspaper for showing too much “relish” as I recounted the story on air. However, that is water under the bridge but it is interesting to point out that the newspaper in question was the one which is always closely linked with the programme. As a journalist I support their editorial judgement on the now infamous Edwina Currie/John Major affair. The fact that they dedicated a sizeable part of their programme to this issue is no surprise, it was a good interesting story and the public, loves nothing more than a good kiss and tell. Now, more than ever before, the media is centred around sales figures and ratings. In some of the tabloids the on-going saga at Albert Square gets more column inches than the happenings at Number 10. Why?, because their readership are more interested in a TV soap. It's a sad state of affairs but at the end of the day it is the public who decides what goes into a newspaper or what appears on a TV or radio programme because they know what they want to read. If they are not interested they don't watch or listen to the programme or buy the newspaper. Its as simple as that.