Rob the Gob

It used to be that, as far as free speech went, you knew your enemies – the church and the state. And you knew your cause. You were serving, (although sometimes by indirect means), the truth.

There are many people who treat free speech as if all forms of discourse were equivalent in the most basic terms. Freedom of the press is seen as exactly identical to freedom for individuals to express their opinions. This position has been defended time and again by political theorists and philosophers and commonly appears as a theme in many constitutional documents and appears to inform the spirit of article nineteen of the universal declaration of rights. This is because, classically, individuals and the press have a common enemy when it comes to freedom of expression. Both need to be protected against the state, for much the same reasons that people and the state both need protecting from the church. People suffer when anyone or anything is allowed absolute power to define meaning and truth, and anyone who speaks against is named a heretic or an ‘enemy of the people’.

Despite the easy way people believe these the freedom of the press and that of the individual to be identical, as a society, we do not have a completely free press. The reasoning is entirely pragmatic and, sadly, completely necessary. Where one voice, no matter how discordant, can be easily indulged, the presses are rather, a powerful choir, capable of dominating the debate to the point where individual opinion, even if it be truth, does not matter, because people’s account of truth can be manipulated by the information they admit into the sphere of debate they control and presentation of that information they do allow to contribute to the debate.

The modern presses, just like the state of old, has the power to define the meaning and truth of events. They set the agenda by which truthful statements can be admitted. Considering this, I wish to dissuade you from the notion that there is an equivalence between the rights to free speech of an individual, and the rights of the media. Instead I invite you to see the media world as closer to an institution like a state than an individual. Indeed, in the case of large media conglomerates, I invite you to see them not as akin to individuals, but as corporate institutions, more powerful and domineering than many states.

Firstly, make no mistake, I am not advocating censorship, and never would, even in a diluted form. I suggest to you, the reader, that the entertainment, news and media culture, by focussing our attention on trivial human interest stories, weather, and moral outrage over swindlers is, in fact, a form of censorship, of the more insidious variety. It structures the whole agenda of meaningful information in a way that serves its own interests.

Just look at the MMR scandal. Here’s a recent tweet from Ben Goldacre (of ‘Bad Science’ fame (@bengoldacre) “My MSc embryology class was asked what some causes of autism were. The only response was ‘vaccines’. *facepalm*” This is, quite frankly, appalling. Despite the fact that, according to any of our modern measures of truth, the MMR vaccine has been proven to be entirely unrelated to autism, such was the media’s power to define the truth that even people educated to a high standard in the specific area cannot frame the debate in any other way than in accordance with the received, incorrect, public opinion.

In modern commercial media, truth is subordinate to the aim of truth-telling. In giving someone the truth, in defining it, the agenda of the provider of the information takes precedence. In fact, telling people the truth is fairly low on the list of many priorities. Certainly it falls far below the desire to entertain. Their motivations cannot even claim the dubious nobility of personal, religious or political agenda. There is one cause of this peculiar modern censorship. The accrual of money by whatever means necessary. You cannot expect commercial institutions to tell you the truth about anything. All you can expect is for them to present you with something that will interest and entertain you enough so that they can make money from you directly or indirectly – through payment for the paper or news service in question, or (more commonly now), through their commercial sponsors.

But it doesn’t just apply to discourse regarding ‘the news’, or political or religious belief. It also applies to any form of creative art, or, indeed, scientific research. An ill-informed article about some alleged conspiracy over climate change, or an article that vastly over-estimates the dire impact of immigration will always sell more papers, attract more internet attention and keep more viewers watching than a more measured article. A newspaper or internet service that just blatantly lies will make more money than one that doesn’t. Thankfully, we have laws regarding this. Still, though, the manipulation of the truth – especially when it comes to the omitting of salient facts to the contrary – is tolerated in the name of free speech. Thus does grossly exaggerated opinion presented as fact come to dominate our very thoughts.

Such is the power of the large media corporations that speaking out against certain analyses can make a person feel like a heretic. Most commonly, however, people speaking out against certain positions are simply censored. Their opinions and views are simply never reported. They are defined out of the debate, regardless of the truth of their claims, the lies and failures at the heart of the received opinion or the possibly dangerous – often extremely so – consequences of allowing the situation to continue.

Yet, even in principle nobody believes that we should take everyone’s opinion as equally valid. One of the beauties of an individual’s right to free speech is also that it is necessarily accompanied by our right to speak out against it. We can check facts should we wish, and hope that the truth will carry our arguments through. When it come to individual claims, then, in ideal circumstances, we would like to be able to judge them on the basis of truth. Surely this is the standard by which all opinion should be measured. There are some structures within other realms that seem to allow for this. In academic circles, for example, the excepted standard for the validity of a given article is peer review. Now, this isn’t always perfect, certain cultures existing in certain subject areas that do, indeed , repress valid research. However, compared to the citizen’s individual ability against the power of the media, it seems astonishingly effective, and edifying. There is a clear reason for this. Academic circles, despite their occasional wobbles to the contrary, are interested in finding things out. They are concerned with finding out the truth of things. If they were concerned, primarily, with making money, things would be very different indeed (as the commercialisation of certain type of academia has shown time and again).

However, this doesn’t work in other spheres, such as music, film and television, primarily because there is commercial interest. Wherever there is money to be made, you will find people who will go to almost any lengths to see the balance of culture tip in their favour. This has never been so clear as it is now. When the same company that owns the paper that a film reviewer’s column appears in also produces the film being reviewed, you cannot expect a fair and balanced account of its merits. Worse still, cinemas, often being parts of large chains themselves, will not show or promote independent films. Which often means you can’t see them. Commercial radio stations are businesses whose job it is to sell advertising space and attract sponsorship. Consequently, they tend to play only well-known music, as this is the safest way to attract an audience (which makes them dull). But it is worse than this, because this problem is compounded when channels and stations are owned by media conglomerates. Pressure is applied to them both overly and covertly to promote individual pieces of music, and not others. Essentially, for very sound and sensible financial reasons, a form of censorship is being applied, even to the extent when annual award ceremonies are used to present these feeble pop-puppets as ‘serious artists’. If anyone complains, they appeal to free speech! It is, after all, their right to broadcast whatever they want. Minority interest music, and music which is overtly counter-culture, or even just perceived as slightly risky, is simply not played, as a matter of policy. Sometimes, such is the power of this retail sector alone that certain media companies will restrict their artists freedom to say what they like (Wall Mart have done this via record companies to recording artists in the past). Yet nobody seems to care about this manipulation of information and censorship; even those who scream with outrage every time the state tries to ban the odd song or movie. Yet being exposed to music, film, literature or any art that you don’t know, in unfamiliar styles or genres is an important part of personal growth, and vastly important to society. If the only music were, by governmental restriction, only allowed to produce, inoffensive state-approved music that never strays beyond the depth of a radio-friendly four minutes, there would rightly be a terrible outcry. But for fear of not being able to produce or promote music, or have it broadcast by corporate media, this has actually come close to being a de facto restriction many times. Worse still, the tendrils of vested interests of the biggest corporations extend right up to the highest institutions of government. The big media corporations can apply pressure directly to government on the basis of media support, or paint subsidiary and sister corporations in a more favourable light to their competitors. Quite commonly, the public is completely unaware of the undeclared interests.

To a degree this is starting to sort itself out due to the internet. However, if you are reading this, the chances are that you are pretty internet-savvy. Due to the fact that this page is never promoted by any media companies (any only very occasionally by any other means), the chances of anyone finding it are miniscule. It is the case that myself and many of my friends now pursue information across the web, and are starting to consume our art in a similar way (music has come along way in this regard). We don’t do this exclusively, though. And we are still, hugely in the minority. Even then, much of the media we actually interact with are just derivative versions of big media. And they’re often just as riddled with falsified facts and distortions as the worst newspapers. And it’s easy to forget that most of the people around us still consume everything through traditional media sources. It is this that still defines the game.

So, what alternatives are there? We need to preserve the ability of publishers to print things that may be against the interests of global media corporations, but also governments, churches or anything else they feel is appropriate. Yet we need to make truth their standard, and so free ourselves from their quiet tyranny. To a degree, the internet is starting to act as a correcting factor, by means as various as comedic demonstrations of power such as Rage Against the Machine Facebook campaign to twitter’s influence in Iran. But it is a constant fight, and it rarely seems capable of accessing the real focus of the media companies power – the ability to frame the debates in a way that serves them.

But there is an institution that has, for decades, managed to buck the trend, and exists in stark opposition to the notion that news and media should service the interests of companies first and people second. It is far from perfect, but we, in Britain, are very, very lucky to have a working alternative model. The BBC. The BBC is a public institution, but is not under the direct control of the state. As a public institution that is not directly under the control of the state, it is free to criticise anyone, with very little in the way of vested interests influencing its behaviour. Occasionally, as any institution does, it attempts to serve its own interests (further independence from the state and de-commercialisation would serve it well here), but as it has no vested interests outside of what it does, this is much more minor consideration. As a broadcaster or wider media, it exists not only to entertain, but also to showcase new talent and less mainstream alternatives, and can serve minority interests. BBC Six Music and the Asian Network were exact demonstrations of this, and it is tragic that the big media corporations have already got their way to the point where these are cut back.

The media companies’ motives are clear – by curtailing the BBC, they can get a larger share of the market, and so make more money. Yet this truth is rarely spoken by them. Instead they frame the debate in terms of commercial success – very few people listen to x, or fewer people like y than like z. This, of course, is completely irrelevant – providing some people are interested –people who wouldn’t be served by the commercial channels available – the BBC is doing its job. They produce some of the finest television programs made anywhere in the world. Their documentaries are legendary, world-wide for their accuracy, impartiality and quality. Through the world services, they are a voice for integrity and honesty in almost every corner of the planet. And the only people (in principle) who they are responsible to are those they service – the public. Should they lie to us or manipulate us, we can directly influence them because the British people fund them, as a public, as a whole, and can hold them to account. To a lesser degree, so can the state, and quite rightly – the publications of big media companies pounce on any question of their wrongdoing. The BBC, of course, can do this right back at them should they fall. They make the  media companies occasionally actually do what they claim they are doing for a living. It is accountable to us in the same way that any public institution that is not directly under the control of the government is, such as the courts. And, like the courts, informs one of a valuable nexus of checks and balances that ensure that the system as a whole is subject to less corruption or the domination of those with vested interests. The BBC has the power to do this, and nowhere is this power more important than in news journalism.

Is there any wonder that certain British newspapers relentlessly campaign for its removal? Without the BBC, there would be nothing to stop them save the liable courts or outright state censorship. In their campaign, they target the most obvious irritant that is a consequence of the BBC; the license fee. – a small sum of money that everyone who owns a television must pay, by law.  It’s an irritant, sure, but if we wanted to  maintain the current journalistic standards in Britain and through out the world, it would surely cost us more in endless court cases and government investigations – many of which would also not carry the authority of a BBC report, being a direct function of the state and, therefore, subject to more suspicion.

But it isn’t just this. Britain has one of the most vibrant music scenes anywhere on earth. This, in no small part, is due to the fact that we are not entirely subject to commercial radio. Further, we have some of the best television in the world – rivalled only by the USA, I would say – and this is a direct consequence of the existence of the BBC. Firstly, because by producing a high standard of television, it raises the bar for any competitor, and, secondly, because the advertising revenue that the commercial channels can command is divided amongst fewer people. It brings up the standard of everything. And it’s not just here. The world would be a very different place, much easier for states to manipulate, were it not for the BBC’s worldwide broadcasting services and internet content.

The BBC is not perfect. There are questions about some of the way that the BBC spends its money. There should be. But most of the focus, in my mind, should be upon the things the BBC does in order to make itself more like commercial channels – the expensive big names, the expensive reality TV shows. The misunderstanding of this occurs only when we allow the big media corporations to frame the debate as if it were all about ratings rather than public service.

In short, the BBC offers us a model which is a viable, working alternative to institutions that act against free speech while pretending to act in its name. We would be fools to let any government chop it up and serve it to the big media corporations. Not only would it damage our society, but have global ramifications for free artistic expression and the standard of truth.