The philosophy of interactive news reached its nadir on ITV1: we had a lengthy submission from a viewer who had spotted a dead bird in his garden

A few weeks ago a friend texted me. "Just flicked over to Question Time and Adam Rickitt is on panel. WHAT IS GOING ON? Will it be Jade Goody next week?" My friend is one of those people for whom current affairs is a remote foreign country, so on the rare occasion when a media detail registers on his radar, it is usually worth taking a look.

For those who do not know, Adam Rickitt is a former catalogue underwear model who became a Coronation Street actor and once made a pop song whose video featured him naked in a cage. He now wants to become a Tory MP - an improbable fancy, you might say, but one that did at least distinguish his inclusion on the panel from a more recent choice of wild-card guest, an actor called Art Malik, famous chiefly for having appeared on Holby City.

When Question Time began featuring less obvious panellists a few years ago, the innovation generated quite a fierce debate. Concerns about dumbing down were expressed, as were doubts about what actors or pop stars would actually bring to the debate. But the policy is now so entrenched in news broadcasting values that if Jade Goody really were to be invited on next week, probably only someone as oblivious to recent media trends as my friend would be surprised.

Few casting directors would presume that Alistair Darling could act, so it is odd that we now assume Malik or Rickitt will have valuable opinions. The assumption relies upon the belief that one person's view is just as interesting as anyone else's - a modish theory that informs an amazing amount of current affairs output, and sustains the obsession with media interactivity. The democratisation of opinion has an appealing ring to news organisations paranoid about being accused of patrician arrogance, so one can see why it caught on. But what does it actually produce? Anyone who has read many online political blogs will tell you that the answer is: not very much.

Current affairs programmes claim that by broadening their range of voices they widen their appeal. If my friend noticed Rickitt on Question Time, they might argue, that just goes to show it works. But it doesn't go to show that soap stars have anything interesting to say. Malik may well be a great actor, but the revelation that someone off Holby City thinks Prince Charles is "a wonderful man" is not what Question Time is really for.

The nadir of the interactive philosophy can be seen every day on ITV1's lunchtime news bulletin, which invites viewers to text or e-mail their comments on the big story and runs them as a ticker along the screen.

During the bird flu scare this past week, we had a lengthy submission from a viewer who had spotted a dead bird in his garden. He'd called the relevant authorities and been told not to worry: just throw it away. What did we think about that, then? It used to be the job of news to distinguish between a story - "man discovers first UK bird flu case" - and a non-story - "man doesn't discover first UK bird flu case". The two are now presented as more or less equivalent, as if editors daren't have the audacity to look as if they think they know the difference.

One viewer did recently have an opinion worth airing. According to Private Eye, the lunchtime news bulletin received a mobile-phone message asking ITN to "stop asking people questions and do some of your own journalism, you bunch of c***s". Oddly enough, on this occasion they had no problem making an editorial judgement, and decided not to broadcast it.

There was something very curious about the sympathetic press for Ken Livingstone following his suspension. The Guardian's editorial was typical, demanding what right an unelected quango had to overturn London's democratic choice. It was a very good question. But another good question would have been why reporters and leader writers all faithfully reported the line that the mayor had "compared" a Jewish journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

Livingstone did not do anything of the sort. The reporter had been relentlessly pursuing him, on the orders of the London Evening Standard news desk.

As any schoolchild could tell you, "concentration camp guard" is a shorthand phrase universally deployed to scorn someone who justifies their disagreeable behaviour on the grounds that they are only following orders.

Livingstone wasn't making a comparison; he was drawing an analogy - a distinction that must be obvious to even a semi-literate sub-editor. And yet, without exception, even the press that condemned the suspension repeated the lie.

Why would they do that? With Fleet Street friends like these, editor Veronica Wadley is the least of Livingstone's worries.

Peter Wilby writes in this week's Education Special. His media column returns next week

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website