Editor's Note: You can listen to Feedback online or download it here.
On Feedback this week I interviewed Richard Ayre, Chairman of the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee. We discussed his committee’s highly critical report on an interview with a member of Isis on Radio 1’s Newsbeat. The issue was not so much about whether interviews with representatives of such organisations should be broadcast but how they should be conducted and what context is needed.
These issues are familiar ones to Mr Ayre since he worked for BBC News in Northern Ireland in the 1970s, and later occupied senior editorial positions in the Corporation.
Indeed it was he who found a solution to the problem facing broadcasters in the late 1980’s when Mrs Thatcher’s government banned the broadcasting of the voices of terrorists, or those associated with terrorist organisations eg Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness of Sinn Fein.
Even if those interviewed were also elected representatives, the broadcasters could only show the interviews taking place and report the content, not transmit the actual soundtrack. This meant, of course, that long, tough interviews, holding these people to account, were impossible. Richard Ayre’s ingenious solution was to get actors to read the words and “lip synch” them so that the audience could see and hear exactly what was being said. It was a second best, but a good one, greatly appreciated by Northern Irish actors for whom this was an unexpected source of employment.
The Government eventually gave in and such interviews were allowed once more. We could all then concentrate on whether they were rigorous enough and had sufficient context, and that the number of such interviews were proportionate.
Some newspapers, the Daily Telegraph for example, condemn what they call “anti-British” interviews, on the basis that their content is offensive, but those who favour them say we should know about offensive views and to broadcast them is not to condone them.
I got into lots of trouble in the late 70s and 80s trying to report on the IRA, exploring their actions and political beliefs in some detail. My justification was that the British electorate needed to know what was being done in their name and why the Troubles in Northern Ireland were continuing for so long. My colleagues and I were called “traitors” and Marxists, and Paul Johnson, the fiery columnist , wrote that “The BBC not only rapes, it rapes for the Revolution”.
In such a heated atmosphere it is difficult to keep a cool head. Judge if Richard Ayre has done that in his Feedback interview.You can hear it and the rest of this week’s Feedback.
Do let us know what you think.
Roger Bolton
Roger Bolton presents Feedback on Radio 4
