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Raging right now in the UK is a debate about debates. Politicians and broadcasters are heaving to and fro in search of a least-objectionable solution to planned election debates. It is all to the good of democracy, yes?
UK voters will, most likely, go to the polls in early May to select members of the House of Commons. Ahead of that could be nationally televised debates among party leaders. Beyond that, everything is up for grabs as an expanded political sphere and equally enlarged news media sector , including calling the whole thing off.
Televised debates in 2010, say many savvy commentators, put Conservative Party leader - and current prime minister - David Cameron on a back-foot, sent Labour Party leader - then prime minister - Gordon Brown into retirement and brought Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg a spot of fame and the deputy prime minister's seat. The latest publicly announced proposal would set PM Cameron debating Labour Party leader Ed Miliband on Sky News and Channel 4, another on the BBC adds in Mr. Clegg, then the ITV debate adds UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
PM Cameron then indicated he'd be a no-show for one or all the debates unless Green Party leader Natalie Bennett participates, presumably to deflect attention from quick-tongued right-wing firebrand Mr. Farage. If PM Cameron declines, opposition party media advisors have "suggested" he'd be represented on stage by an "empty chair." So then newspapers Guardian and Daily Telegraph along with YouTube (Google) proposed a digital debate with everybody. The Scottish National Party also wants a place on the stage. (See more about elections and media here)
Televised political debates, in concept, have been deemed essential to political democracies, giving potential voters opportunity to see leaders and candidates face-off. The concept is beloved by news media people for providing the opportunity to select winners and, more importantly, losers in endless analysis. The chance of a live-on-TV blunder is a bonus.
Political media advisors have also learned a lot since the groundbreaking US Nixon-Kennedy debate in 1960. Leading politicians would rather not give opponents the chance to appear equal, much less get in a cleaver - and repeatable - one-liner. And so, rules are negotiated to reduce uncertainty, participants rehearse with the best wordsmiths in their hire and, in the inevitable aftermath, everybody wonders why this practice continues.
The kids are alright... and listening to the radio. Teenagers in Denmark are spent more time listening in 2014 - 59 minutes per day - than 2013 - 55 minutes, noted the audience research department at public broadcaster DR ahead of a more comprehensive study of media trends yet to be released. Time spent listening for all age groups fell, year on year, to 113 minutes per day from 117 minutes.
"Not all age groups have reduced their time spent with radio," said deputy research manager Dennis Christensen, posted on the DR.dk website (January 14). "The old image of younger people turning their backs on the media is, we now know, imprecise." Danish teenagers, he admitted, are listening more to local commercial stations. (See more about media in Denmark here)
The percentage of the Danish population listening to radio fell one point - to 92% - one year on. Listening to DR channels fell to 73% from 76% in 2013 while listening to commercial stations rose to 25% from 22%. The top ten most listened to radio channels, said the report, were unchanged.
Last October the DR research department reported that 44% of Danes over 60 years were listening to the various digital radio platforms, more than twice the percentage of Danes as a whole.
A jury of German linguists has selected the un-word for the past year, literally the most offensive commonly heard term. And the winner - or loser - is lügenpresse, meaning lying press. Anti-Immigrant protest group Pegida has used the term with great relish in recent weeks.
Lügenpresse was used during World War I and "also served the Nazis to defame the independent press," explained the linguists on the unwortdesjahres.net website (January 13). "Such a blanket condemnation prevents sound media criticism and thus contributes to a risk to press freedom, so important for democracy‚ especially evident these days." (See more on press/media freedom here)
Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) demonstrators have complained about less than sympathetic news coverage of their far-right point of view. They became incensed in mid-December when an undercover RTL reporter at one of their marches was interviewed on public radio NDR and remained under cloak to share disparaging remarks about immigrants. He was fired.
The group, supported by neo-Nazis and football hooligans, has organised marches, largely in eastern Germany, over the last several weeks. The repeated chant has been "lying press." Anti-Pegida demonstrations have regularly outnumbered the chanters.
While hardly a contest, runner-up for 2014 un-word was erweiterte verhörmethoden (advanced interrogation techniques), the common euphemism for torture.
The illustrative value of parody, again, has the attention of editors and reporters. In the rush to provide viewers, listeners and readers with details and, hopefully, context following the tragic murders in Paris last week, a wide variety of experts and specialists were called to compliment reporting. Most offered well-formed insight.
One spectacular failure came last Sunday night (January 11) on US channel Fox News when a "terrorism expert" proclaimed Birmingham, Britain's second largest metropolitan area, "totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in." Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch under the 21st Century Fox corporate umbrella, is known for its right-wing point of view and often stretches veracity to the point of parody. A day later Steven Emerson, who fronts The Investigative Project on Terrorism and occasionally appears for-fee on Fox News, took to social media with an apology to the city of Birmingham. (See more about TV news here)
"When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fool's Day," said UK prime minister David Cameron. "This guy's clearly a complete idiot." The Twitteratti had a field-day with Mr. Emerson's gaff, the program's host and Fox News generally as did media observers in the UK and Europe. No comment has been heard from Fox News and none is expected.
When a politician complains about news coverage the story is easily buried as just another tale of "dog bites man." And so it was when the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) published details of an investigation suggesting corruption. Serbia's prime minister Aleksandar Vucic was incensed.
"Go tell the liars they lied again," said PM Vucic at a press conference at the end of last week, quoted by French-language Le Courrier des Balkans (January 11). Central to his ire was Ambassador Michael Davenport, head of the European Union's delegation to Serbia, for financial support to BIRN, "that undermines the government of Serbia." BIRN Serbia is part of the EU-organized Strengthening Media Freedom project in the Western Balkans. BIRN publishes its work on the web portal balkaninsight.com.
Serbia is in line for EU accession, an arduous process when all goes well, favored by most EU Member States. EU observers believe full Member status will not be achieved before 2020 due to a variety of shortcomings, including media plurality. In its 2014 Media Sustainability Index report, IREX described the journalism standards in Serbia as "sinking." (See more about media in Serbia here)
"Media criticism is essential to ensure the proper accountability of elected governments," shot back EU Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maja Kocijancic, reported Reuters (January 11). BIRN had earlier reported on a rather complicated arrangement involving state-owned airline Air Serbia and UEA carrier Etihad. The government was forced against its will to reveal previously secret contracts.
"I refuse to be your puppet," exclaimed PM Vucic, whose political career began as spin doctor for dictator Slobodan Milosevic. "The EU has tried to shut me up."
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