Channel 4 v the BBC

Whatever you may think about the various biases of Jon Snow & Co. at Channel 4 News (or about Fraser Nelson for that matter), Fraser Nelson of The Spectator is surely right to say that Channel 4 is far better than the BBC when it comes to broadcasting important and controversial documentaries:

Its documentaries are distinguished by picking controversial topics that the BBC shies away from: Ch4 lives up to its remit of challenging, rather than reinforcing, consensus.

The focus of his piece is Benefits Street, but he also refers to The Great Global Warming Swindle. Neither, he says, are programmes the BBC would have dared touch with a ten-foot bargepole. Channel 4, in contrast, is much braver:

For example, a few years ago, Ch4 commissioned a documentary entitled The Great Global Warming Swindle. It did so knowing it would spend months facing an onslaught from the green lobby groups whose remit is to close down debate by going after the enemies. They use this tactic because it works with the easily-cowed BBC: CoffeeHousers may remember that they forced the Beeb to apologise for allowing Nigel Lawson on the Today programme to discuss climate change. This very apology has a chilling effect: researchers know not to ask people like Lawson on again, or risk getting their boss into trouble. 

He then cites another example that's highly relevant to Benefits Street:  

A few years ago, the BBC asked John Humphrys to present a superb and prescient BBC1 documentary on the future of the welfare state, flagging up the fact that public were turning against it. The left went bananas, and then attacked the BBC with various spurious complaints about impartiality, balance etc. It worked. Appallingly, Humphrys was then summoned to a BBC star chamber and asked to explain himself; the BBC Trust found him guilty. The BBC is a massive bureaucracy, so hugely sensitive to criticism from lobby groups – and buckles, if the onslaught is great enough. Again, this sends a message in the BBC: let’s avoid topics likely to generate such complaints. I know of BBC presenters who have completed a documentary, only to find controversial lines torn from the film by a fearful politburo.

 This is an interesting point, and it's one he then develops:

BBC bias doesn’t really come in the form of reporting. It comes in the form of the BBC running away from certain arguments, because its bureaucracy thinks them vulgar and peripheral (Euroscepticsm, concern about immigration etc) and because it lives in fear of the inevitable complaints. Ch4 has no such fear. It’s smaller, so the bureaucratic pressure is weaker.

Now, I have to say that I disagree when he says that "BBC bias doesn't really come in the form of reporting", as it quite often does precisely that (as we've been saying here and elsewhere for years).

Also, I don't think that fear of the fear of tackling the "vulgar and peripheral" (Euroscepticsm, concern about immigration etc) is confined just to the upper echelons of the BBC. I think it's pretty pervasive. 

But, yes, the BBC hates being complained to (and complained about). It hates upsetting certain lobby groups, interests and communities. So there may be some truth to Fraser's fearful bureaucracy point.

He then goes on to make a point that - having seen quite a bit of the BBC's coverage of Benefits Street certainly rings true:

Dorothy Byrne, [Channel 4's] current affairs chief, commissions her documentaries by asking: “where’s the fight? And how can we join it?” She likes to walk into the fire, and Ch4 so with Benefits St. The pro-welfare camp went ballistic, the row escalated to a degree never before witnesses. The BBC ran discussions asking how Benefits St was ever allowed on air. All it did was let the camera roll – 

"The BBC ran discussions asking how Benefits St was ever allowed on air"? Yes, they certainly did - from Newsnight to The One Show. And by doing so they weren't just showing a reluctance to tackle the subject on their own part, they were showing a downright disdain for another broadcaster for daring to do so. That's more than just self-protecting fear. That's bias. 

Incidentally, just about the most common recurring feature of BBC Twitter feeds - even from BBC reporters who usually steer clear of saying controversial things - is the almost unstoppable urge that BBC tweeters have for tweeting or retweeting digs at their rivals - usually the Daily Mail or the Telegraph or Sky News or ITV. They just don't seem able to resist doing so.

Anyhow, back to Fraser Nelson, who then draws his points together:

Benefits St did what many public service documentaries aspire to do but few ever achieve: it actually changed the conversation. The BBC would never tread on such territory. If it wasn’t for Ch4, gritty social documentaries of this type would never be made. Benefits St would never have been made. The Great Global Warming Swindle would never have been made.

And neither, I might add, would Undercover Mosque (and its follow-ups).

One of the most popular comments (posted early) puts a counter-point though:

They weren't so brave with Tom Holland's documentary "Islam: The Untold Story" in 2012, pulling a screening for historians after threats were made.

...which is certainly true. Under the face of numerous threats of violence, including death threats, they did indeed withdraw it. 

However, that they were willing to broadcast it in the first place says something about Channel 4. The BBC would never have commissioned it, never mind broadcast it. They only ever seem to broadcast such programmes if they relate to the 'safer' religions - like Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's Bible's Buried Secrets (which seemed to go out of its way to annoy Jewish - especially Israeli - believers). No landmark series seeking to debunk Islamic history is ever likely to emerge from the bowels of Broadcasting House.

Finally,

Next week, Ch4 will play another blinder – Dispatches will release a film about Isis that James Delingpole thinks stands on a par with John Pilger’s expose about Cambodia’s killing fields. In his words, it’s “television at its most unmissable.”. And served up by by Ch4, a hugely successful public service that widens the parameters of debate and costs the taxpayer nothing.

And indeed it doesn't. The funding status of Channel 4 remains confusing to some people though. Simply put, it's a publicly owned, not-for-profit broadcaster funded solely from commercial revenues but with public service broadcasting obligations. 

Benefit of the doubt

Talking of Benefits Street, which I wasn’t because I hadn’t seen it till last night, the One Show isn’t the BBC’s only outlet for one-sided outrage at Channel 4’s vilifying of the unemployed.

What about the Big Questions? I know Craig can’t bring himself to watch it, but I have enough morbid curiosity for both of us.

First off, as people sometimes say when they’re about to reel off a list, this is why I watch it.

I like the way that people always get interrupted when they’re in full flow. I like it when people talk over each other and I enjoy watching shows where the weighting is so unbalanced that individuals with the wrong opinions are humiliated, squashed, mortified, obviously wish they’d never agreed to come on the programme, or that they’d never been born. (When I say I ‘like’ these things, ‘like’ means what I want it to mean.)

Second, the choice of contributor is evidently wholly dependent on his or her potential ability to make sparks fly. Doesn’t matter if he/she is mad, bad and ugly. The madder, badder and uglier the merrier.

Third, it’s always left-leaning. 

Fourth, the audience is always as assorted as a bumper tin of Quality Street.

Fifth, the audience is always LGTB or similar acronym, multi religion, with one hippy and a few fatties.

Sixth, a minimum quota of Muslims must be in evidence.

Seventh, a Jew and/or a rabbi (or an actor wearing a kippah.) (It struck me that there’s a dressing-up box on the way in.)

Eighth, a gay reverend who, when angry, bears an uncanny resemblance to Devil Baby.

Fourth, the questions are loaded in such a way (unfairly) so as to predetermine the outcome.

This week the first question was about Benefits Street.  The gist of it was fairly similar to Paul O’Grady’s gist, which Craig kindly posted in his piece below.  

“It’s one of those programmes to get middle England ‘up in arms’. These people are the sacrificial lambs on the altar of light entertainment and they have gone willingly: a smart tongue has got them to say all sorts and it is a very unfair representation of unemployment in this country. A lot of people do not choose to be on benefits and this is portraying everyone on benefits as doing it because they want to, not because they have to - it's shocking.” 

O’Grady knows just how the unemployed and middle Englanders feel, I’m sure.

Is ‘middle England?’ another word for Daily Mail readers, or what?

Perhaps ‘a smart tongue’ alludes to the way “the TV” exploits the lure of fifteen minutes of fame, the promise of which might tempt the underprivileged and disadvantaged to shoot themselves in the foot for our delectation.

Certainly, TV producers can approach potential subjects with persuasive words and promises, and the footage can be edited later in whatever ratings-friendly ways the editors see fit.  But the unemployed and the underprivileged are telly savvy. I bet they know what they’re letting themselves in for. Bet you.

But  does the programme actually show a bunch of scroungers? I suggest it showed something slightly different. In a way it glamorised naivete and ignorance. It romanticised ingenuity born of desperation.

So, what was the Big Question?

Should scroungers receive welfare? Not really. The question was: “Are the poor being demonised” My answer was “No.”

The resounding answer in the studio was implicitly  “yes!”

“This programme has made children from the street afraid to go to school.” said an indignant spokesman for the street, assuring us he was not speaking for ALL the street.  “It has demonised the working-class underclass who want to work.” said nearly everyone else. ”The real problem is tax fraud” said the lobby for the redistribution of wealth. “Take money away from the stinking rich and give it to the poor” said several of Robin Hood’s merry men. 

“Well,” said someone, “they squander it on gigantic flat-screens and fags.” “Boo” shouted the audience. “No!” disagreed nearly everyone, “use income tax to pay the poor!”  “ People on benefit have fallen on hard times and those who say otherwise are right-wing Daily Mail readers.”

The scapegoat was a capitalist, Charlie Mullins of Pimlico Plumbers. He thought we should use welfare money to generate work. One lady said “I wouldn’t be surprised if he reads the  Sun”

Charlie Mullins

“Guess what percentage of benefit claims are fraudulent. Guess, go on, guess! You think it’s 20% don’t you, you capitalist bastard? Well it’s not. It’s  nought  point something percent so there, you bloody Sun reader.” said Nikki, putting on his glasses and takingthemoffagain. 

I paraphrase (throughout) by the way.

The spokesperson for (not all of) the residents of the street said he has arranged a debate with Channel Four, but the good people of the street are afraid that what will happen is that they will be put into a goldfish bowl, and people will be brought in to disagree with them and put them down, and they’ll be made to look like losers and benefit cheats. Smidgeon of irony there? 

I did watch the B.S. programme last night. In the line of duty. 

In comparison to The Big Questions it came out on top. It was much more entertaining and slightly less predictable. 

That particular episode seemed to concentrate on a couple with two small children whose behaviour completely defeated them. The young dad kept on philosophising in an unconsciously humorous way, which the programme makers obviously took advantage of. I’m not sure if that was unkind. It probably was. 

The absence of any skills whatsoever proved an unsurmountable obstacle to getting a job, until the poor chap took on the role of a door-to-door salesman, based on 100% commission. He made a jolly good salesman dressed in a dark suit and white shirt apart from the fact that he wasn’t actually selling anything, just asking people to donate to a charity, which no-one would. No wonder he gave it up; but he had momentarily been transformed.  What might have been; but it was back to the old tracky bottoms and T shirt for him. His partner seemed too bright to be doing what she was doing. 

There was no proper demonising. There were quite a lot of shots of a lady with a baritone voice - just sitting, lounging or slumped; dispensing wisdom from a sedentary position. That might have been a bit cruel. The social workers were made to look gormless. I wonder if they felt demonized? I wonder if they really were as gormless as they looked -

I see Caitlin Moran has written something about this in the Times. She says she’s from a benefits background too, so she’s qualified to speak about these things. That means I’d better shut up.  

Undercover Street

Fraser Nelson, writing in the Telegraph about Channel 4's Benefits Street, observes:

Make a documentary about poverty in Uganda and you could win an award. Look at problems in Britain and you’re reported for thought crime — sometimes successfully: BBC One ran an excellent documentary two years ago in which John Humphrys returned to the neighbourhood outside Cardiff in which he grew up and found a quarter of its residents on benefits. How had this “age of entitlement” come about, he asked? The BBC Trust was barraged into finding him guilty of presenting “a personal view on a controversial subject”. Ever since, BBC journalists have shied away from exposing the nature of British poverty — perhaps why they have given such ample coverage to the furious reaction to Benefits Street.

The BBC certainly has given "ample coverage to the furious reaction to Benefits Street", from dawn (Today) to dusk (Newsnight) you might say. Even yesterday's More or Less covered it (dismissively). 

Channel 4's documentaries have often gone where BBC documentaries daren't go - think Undercover Mosque for example - and Dispatches (of which Undercover Mosque was a part) has regularly outstripped the BBC's Panorama, as well as being more 'panoramic' than Panorama in the range of subjects they cover (can you imagine the BBC daring to enrage the teaching unions, as Channel 4 did, with Undercover Teacher?....

....and in the range of opinions they give voice to. The presenters of Dispatches - most drawn from beyond the circle of Channel 4 News - don't have to pretend to be impartial journalists uncovering the truth without having an underlying political agenda. You may not always like the result, but it feels a lot more honest than the BBC alternative. 

Benefits Street

What with even the wonderful More or Less following the rest of the BBC and 'dissing' Channel 4's Benefits Street, it's time for a joke. 

It's a joke that's cropping up all over the place, and all manner of people are passing it off without a tip of the hat to its creator. 

Unfortunately, it's hard to know who its creator is. All we can say is that it's very unlikely to be Marcus Brigstocke, Mark Steel or Jeremy Hardy.

Having watched Benefits street, it's not much different to Sesame Street. Both have a big bird, a bloke living out of a bin, and people trying to learn the alphabet.

For those who missed the BBC's online coverage, here's a flavour of it (headlines only):

Benefits Street: Working couple 'cut' from Channel 4 show

Benefits Street potentially misrepresents: Crisis charity

Frank Skinner turned down Benefits Street narrator job

Benefits Street: Petition calls for programme to be axed

Fifty pence to fame

Benefits Street series sparks hundreds of complaints

Benefits Street Birmingham documentary criticised

Benefits Street: Birmingham documentary 'encouraged crime'