British journalism and the election

I managed to watch an election special of the BBC's Question Time on C-Span last night - the same edition I referred to in Sunday's blog. It was an incredible contrast with the presidential debates in the U.S.

(Also, just as an aside, Sunday was the eighth anniversary of Tony Blair's initial election victory over the Tories. Oh what a day that was. I felt so invigorated as I watched the dawning of a new era in Britain - even from distant Seattle (which is where I was living at the time). So last night, in a vicious bout of nostalgia - and after a glass of wine or three - my partner and I watched an old tape of the May 1, 1997 BBC coverage. I must admit I got a bit misty-eyed there. Oh well. How times change.)

Anyway, last weekend's On the Media (on WNYC/NPR, 4.29.05) included a piece titled Her Majesty's Pugilistic Press (thanks to Doctor Media for bringing it to my attention). Here's the blurb:

It's election time again – in England. And fresh from watching the political strategy employed during our elections, Tony Blair is facing many of the same criticisms that Bush did. But the similarities stop there. Chief among the differences is that the kind of deference afforded to the president here by the media is notably absent in the U.K. So does a critical national press result in a more informed electorate, a more engaged voter? Bob [Garfield] speaks with Michael Goldfarb, senior reporter in Britain for WBUR.

It was interesting listening to Goldfarb's take on the British election. The lack of deference and the vigorous skepticism displayed by the media make the British system profoundly different from that of America (as we've discussed many times in this blog). Goldfarb notes that "the press has lost any sense of deference." Very true. But does this make the British electoral system better than that of America? The New York Times's Adam Nagourney seems to think so. As he notes in his piece, "Maybe the British Do Democracy Better":

Unlike the United States, Britain has no tradition of debates. But the ban on regular television advertising forces the candidates to wage a battle for attention in a forum that has become increasingly marginalized in America - the news media. The 11 national newspapers are filled every morning with pages and pages of articles on the campaign.

Mr. Blair and Mr. Howard seek to fill that space by giving lengthy and rigorous daily news conferences, where they take question after question. Mr. Blair, at a single session the other morning, probably took more questions than either John Kerry or Mr. Bush did at news conferences throughout their entire campaigns.

But it's not as simple as that. Goldfarb notes in his "On the Media " piece that, in spite of the press's best efforts to act as a sort of unofficial opposition to the Blair administration, public apathy and skepticism of the media still seems rampant in the country (turnout at the last election, in 2001, was only 59%, and nobody expects it to be any higher this time around). Goldfarb notes that the electorate has concluded that the press are just as bad as the politicians - that "they all lie."

Well, maybe he's half right. As Kevin Marshnotes in a recent piece in British Journalism Review, there is a growing lack of trust among the British people for their country's journalists. However, the big exception is the BBC, which has retained public confidence and support - even after it was criticized by the Hutton inquiry.