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PC TV

2 comments on PC TV

PC TV
: A great speech at the Edinburgh TV Festival attacks the creeping PCization of TV, popular culture, and the news — the oversensitivity to sensitivities that ends up adding up to a big lie:

The television industry is so in thrall to political correctness that soap and drama writers now routinely consult pressure groups for advice on what they consider offensive, the Edinburgh Television Festival heard yesterday.

In the annual Alternative MacTaggart Lecture, Rod Liddle, the former editor of Radio 4’s Today programme, called on producers to ignore attempts by organisations such as the Commission for Racial Equality, the mental health charity Mind and the anti-smoking group Ash to dictate what is broadcast.

“They hector and harry you into portraying society as they would like it to be, rather than as what it is,” Mr Liddle told an audience of broadcasters.

In many cases, the interference was done “with the connivance” of the Government and statutory bodies such as the Independent Television Commission and the BBC’s Editorial Policy Unit. The aim was to “bully programme makers into changing the nature of their news programmes, dramas and light entertainment in order to accord with the various agendas pursued by each group”….

He recounted how, before the Iraq war, BBC journalists were summoned to a meeting to discuss how they could cover the conflict without offending Muslims.

Later, he heard a BBC report about a British suicide bomber in Israel. The report concluded – “apropos of nothing at all” – that the vast majority of British Muslims were “utterly opposed” to suicide attacks against Israel.

“When we are forced into making these blithe and comfortable platitudinous asides we do everybody a disservice,” he said. In a desire to avoid inflaming religious antagonism, “we massage the truth in order to kid ourselves, and the audience, that that’s really the case”.

He gave warning that such “small incremental changes” to dramas or news may be well-intentioned, but “before you know it, we’re living in a sort of ghastly Sesame Street”, bearing no relation to reality.

Of course, this happens here, too: Special-interest pressure groups try to get art created by quota and agenda: don’t show smoking; have more of this kind of person or that; don’t say that even if people do say it. What it really means is: Be dishonest.

Somebody, please put up the entire text of the speech.

2 responses to “PC TV”

  1. PJF Avatar
    PJF

    Er, don’t be fooled by this. Rod Liddle is the twilight zone leftie who hired Andrew Gilligan to the BBC’s “Today” programme, with the avowed purpose of stirring up trouble for the government (formed by a Labour party that had become much more centrist than when Liddle was a speech writer for it).
    He was forced to choose either writing his biased opinions in the “Guardian” newspaper or restricting himself to the job of ‘impartial’ news editing for the BBC, after an especially slanted article about a massive ‘right-wing’ protest march that, not surprisingly, didn’t get a mention on his Today fiefdom.
    He now makes his mark (and living) by being an ‘expert’ pundit on media matters. This speech is part of that, and is utterly disingenuous. He was happily part of that left wing bias he is pretending to rail against. If you could see him crowing and smirking over the difficulties his nasty little gargoyle (Gilligan) has placed the government in, you would dismiss this with the contempt it deserves. It’s like a lecture on human rights by Saddam Hussein – the words seem right until you see the mouth they’re coming out of.

  2. some guy Avatar
    some guy

    Enh, 99% of the time when people inveigh against PC it’s just to press a right-wing agenda, and this guy is no exception. I find what we he says exceptionally trite and mendacious. A couple citations:
    “…soap and drama writers now routinely consult pressure groups… such as… the anti-smoking group Ash to dictate what is broadcast.”
    The simple fact is that, if you show cool kids smoking, that will inspire kids to smoke. There was a recent study on this (although relating to movies, not TV), and anyway it stands to reason. Right? It stands to reason, doesn’t it? So why do it? For “realism”? Puhleeze… as if TV dramas are (or need to be) realistic in any meaningful sense, and as if realism of that detail is necessary for effective drama. Look, TV affects the culture, affects society. You can pretend it doesn’t, but pretending doesn’t make it so. (Or maybe he is just saying “screw society”, but why should we then listen to him?)
    “He recounted how, before the Iraq war, BBC journalists were summoned to a meeting to discuss how they could cover the conflict without offending Muslims.”
    I mean, is this a problem? Is this guy saying that that BBC should have DELIBERATELY gone out of their way to offend Muslims, or is he just saying that the BBC SHOULDN’T HAVE meetings to discuss how major news events are to be handled, that it should be left up the individual reporter? Is that how the news business should operate?
    “Later, he heard a BBC report about a British suicide bomber in Israel. The report concluded – ‘apropos of nothing at all’ – that the vast majority of British Muslims were “utterly opposed” to suicide attacks against Israel.”
    If the statement (that most British Muslims oppose the attacks) is FALSE, OK, that’s a problem. But if it’s TRUE, my God, isn’t that, um, kind of related to the story?
    After all, a lot of people, not being trained in classical logic, are going to go from “Most terrorists are Muslims” to “Most Muslims are terrorists” pretty easily. It’s a natural progresson of naive (untrained) logic. Right? So wouldn’t just mentioning a contrindicative fact be germane? Should the BBC go out of its way to make sure it DOESN’T bring material like that into news stories?
    “…we massage the truth…”
    Actually, a single example of that would be useful. He doesn’t cite any, either because there aren’t any or he’s just lazy. Again, unless what the BBC announcer said is FALSE (and if so, citing a poll or whatever to demonstrate this would be useful), how is that massaging the truth?