Reporting the Reporters
'It's in the public's interest.'
That argument, so long the media's get-out-of-jail-free card, desperately needs critical assessment, at least according to Rowan Williams.
'A flourishing, morally credible media... is a vital component (of society)', he said in a recent lecture. However, levels of 'adversarial and suspicious probing', which imply that 'any kind of concealment is... guilty until proved innocent', are unhealthy.
Over time, true 'public interest' is devalued, the common good twisted and public scepticism about everything (not least, the media themselves) nourished. What we need, he urges, is 'assessable communication', journalism that shows its workings and permits 'ways of evaluating reported reactions'.
The archbishop should, then, be pleased to hear that the department of health has started employing media consultants to measure and publish statistics on the output and 'slant' of the press's NHS coverage.
These consultants will rate every article according to how positive, negative or neutral it is, thereby also assessing the journalists and newspapers that write and publish them.
The fact that there has been a longstanding difference between people's opinion of the NHS 'in general' and their (more positive) personal experiences suggests that this exercise is much needed.
However, the reason given by the DoH - 'to have this established on a scientific basis' - is less encouraging.
The West has long been captive to the myth of objectivity, the idea, in Alister McGrath's words, that 'it is possible to locate and occupy a non-ideological vantage-point, from which reality may be surveyed and interpreted.' 'Scientific' is the adjective we usually, lazily, use to describe this position, idly ignoring the fact that every description or analysis - let alone ones about levels of journalistic bias - demands some form of judgement.
This does not mean, as some post-moderns would have us believe, that there is no such thing as reality. Merely, that human knowledge is always provisional, and always demands some form of personal commitment. In this respect, at least, the human race is one big faith group.
In spite of their moral failings, the media should not, however, be our scapegoat. 'Societies', as Williams reminds us, 'have the media they deserve and license.' They need (as we all do) the modesty to admit fallibility, the faith to profess the existence and power of the truth, the courage to search for it, and the humility to allow it to change us into its likeness.
Nick Spencer
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