What on earth is wrong with the people who run our TV and radio news programmes? Ideology, I suppose, is what’s ‘wrong’.

Still, it can be quite infuriating to listen to the same discredited perspective being peddled day after day on the networks. We should certainly challenge it: if we do not we cede the space to the right and the centre right without a fight. Hegemony needs to be met by contestation, even if that’s only at the level of writing or calling these programmes. It’s not enough, of course, but better than passively letting them repeat the old tired rigmarole.

Take the discussion on this morning’s  BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme about the role of  banks etc, with  Geoff Mulgan, Richard Lambert and Gillian Tett, ‘chaired’ by John Humphreys.

I was pleased that a discussion of this kind was initiated but disappointed that again we heard the same voices. This is nothing against the contributors per se, and I was impressed in particular by  Gillian Tett’s remarks. But really, can’t they do better than this? The  Today programme seems to think the most radical outlooks on the  current financial crisis are those of (say) Martin Wolf and Will  Hutton, plus Gillian Tett or Blairites like Mulgan. So that’s the FT, the Economist and the right of the Labour Party sorted (and Lambert is ex head of the CBI). Not exactly a broad swathe of opinion, is it? Unsurprisingly, the most radical of the bunch was Gillian Tett, who at least seems capable of critical thought. Hardly radical, though.

In this they fail as a news gatherer, and they tend to reinforce a  supposed consensus that is actually not shared by many of us. And that is  why phenomena such as the Occupy movement are so hard for them to  evaluate. Why not interview David Harvey or Wolfgang Streek, for  instance? both are noted academics who have recently written on the current  events and who don’t share the perspective we keep hearing on ‘Today’.  Vox pop outside St Paul’s won’t do: they need to include a broader  tranche of informed opinion in their daily diet of comment and analysis. This has to include radical voices – and ‘radical’ here ought not to mean just  ‘mildly Keynesian’.

If they did that, maybe John Humphrey’s opening remarks today about  trade unions ‘ruling the roost’ until they were ‘dealt with’ would  have been challenged by someone. If they don’t, they will be seen as  increasingly irrelevant to the concerns of large swathes of the  population. No wonder the blog and the tweet are replacing the old channels of news and information.

This ought to matter to them, so we need to say it to them, as part of the struggle to get different views heard. I don’t write this because I naively suppose that this issue of who gets airtime hasn’t come to the attention of the production team at Today, but rather that we must not let this kind of thing go by without any response. ‘Today’ still has a big audience, and that matters.

So I urge you: write or phone them. Don’t let them claim no one objected.

Read more at:

The BBC is caving in to a Tory media policy dictated by Rupert Murdoch | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Rupert Murdoch as he actually looks

The Conservatives have vile little deal sorted out with Murdoch, and when they come to power (alas! – it’s looking pretty certain), they will start to knacker the BBC for him. One way to help Murdoch is to hobble the regulatory framework that protects public service broadcasting and restrains him (I’ve blogged on that before) – the other begins to emerge in the Guardian story  below. In return for The Sun‘s support – and that of the rest of his squalid empire – the Tories will ensure that the BBC is cut down to size. Naturally they will deny the link, but it is there, and it will be toxic for yet another part of the UK’s public realm. And that’s a firm prediction.

You didn’t  think the Sun’s backing came free of charge, did you?

Jeremy Hunt warns of tough times ahead for all ‑ including BBC

Hunt, who would take charge of broadcasting policy as culture secretary, says the BBC should respond by “cutting its cloth”, pointing out that 47 BBC executives earn the same as, or more than, the prime minister’s £197,689 salary.

If the BBC fails to act on a voluntary basis, Hunt makes clear he would use his role overseeing the renewal of the BBC licence fee in 2012 to push for salaries to be cut. “That will be a chance to look at the whole direction of the BBC ‑ and executive compensation is obviously one of things that you discuss as part of that.”

Hunt shares the concerns of Sir Christopher Bland, the former BBC chairman, who warned the corporation to be careful about throwing its weight around now that the BBC’s income outstrips all its commercial rivals put together by £1bn. “There is a real risk that if this carries on, the BBC could be the only show in town. That would be incredibly unhealthy for consumers who really appreciate the choice that they get.”

Stressing that the BBC’s independence is sacrosanct, Hunt is careful about dictating where it must cut. He rejects the call from the Sunday Times for the BBC news website to be scaled back because it is undermining newspaper websites.

But the BBC should be careful about expanding its website. “You might think at first glance that if the BBC does have a website about angling, that can be brilliant for the angling community. But if the unintended consequence of that was that it drove out of business every single angling magazine in the country, you might take a different view.”

More below, if you can stomach it:

Jeremy Hunt warns of tough times ahead for all ‑ including BBC | Politics | The Guardian.