World

As already quoted on page 25, George Alagiah alsoidentifies the British newsrooms’ reliance on Reuters andAPTN agencies as a source of imbalance. Since nonewsroom can adequately cover the world with its owncorrespondents alone, journalists depend heavily on thesetwo principal agencies to inform them and providestories and pictures, especially from the further-flungparts of the world. Alagiah maintains that these Londonbasedagencies promote Euro-American agenda whichignore development stories and influence programmeeditors against them.A couple of interviewees go behind the practicalissues to consider how their own outlook comes to beshaped. One notes the paradox that, since television is hismain source of information about the developing worldit is hard for him to judge whether the balance ontelevision is right or not! Another points to the fact thatthe senior policy-makers in television all come from the“same small social world” and share the same world view,which inevitably influences the outlook of the wholeindustry.G.4.3. Unbalanced – but trying to redress thebalanceA small minority of interviewees feel that the imbalancethey perceive in coverage of the developing world shouldbe redressed.“We do have to fight hard to do this better. So we try tohave travel and music programmes to show thesecountries’ complex cultures. And we need to see problemssolved by the people themselves. It was important to havea black Afro-American presenter on Into Africa” JaneRoot, BBC“When we went to South Africa we tried to cover a bit ofeverything: the violence, the holidaymakers, but also themiddle way, where we chatted to ordinary people on thebeach. It wasn’t all problems. But “context” is middleclassbollocks. People won’t watch anything at all aboutthese countries if it’s not made engaging and related tothem in some way” Peter McHugh, GMTV“ We’re not as good as we should be. I’m always saying toour team ‘ Where are we showing people helpingthemselves? ‘ Lack of airtime to explain things properlyhas been a problem, but with the development of theinternet and News 24 space is less of a problem.” RichardAyre, BBC NewsG.5.“TV news, though powerful, is a very inadequate meansof portraying a whole picture. We make a fantasticallygood stab at it. But we usually get more flak for tryingdifficult stories, like coverage of the IMF, and ‘oversimplifying’than we do for not covering them at all! “ VinRay, BBC News“News doesn’t give a fair representation of thesecountries. Current affairs and documentaries probablydo better.There should be more news items like the oneswe’ve done on GATT, democratisation in Zambia,urbanisation in Nairobi and the story of sheer humanresiliance in Mali” George Alagiah, BBC“We’re conscious of this problem. We try to cover othermore positive stories too. But we are mainly coveringmajor news stories rather than ongoing trends. We alsotry to cover the ‘Why?’, the background, to a story, butthere is never enough time in a bulletin to do as much aswe’d like” Nigel Dacre, ITN“Developing countries have often been portrayed asvictims, even arts programmes are tinged with this.AFRICA EXPRESS was an attempt to move right awayfrom the usual stereotypes and slants and show otheraspects of Africa’s very varied countries and people”.George Carey, Mentorn Barraclough CareyTV Coverage of the developingworldWhat works against it?G.5.1.The overwhelming perception of most policymakers andmany programme-makers is that TV programmes aboutthe developing world are dull, depressing, unpleasurableand therefore unpopular. This poses a dilemma since, asthis survey has already shown, the majority believe thatthis to be an area that should be covered, and that itshould be covered on mainstream channels.This section outlines the principal reasons given forwhy this coverage is thought to be dull, and then listsother practical, cultural and technological reasons whythis can be regarded as a ‘problem’ area of production.Since the views expressed on these points predominantlyreflect the policymakers/commissioners’ perspectives,this section concludes with the comments ofprogramme-makers.G.5.1.1. Dull viewing: the perceived causesTHE DUTY FACTORProgrammes have been made because the subject isimportant, not because it makes good viewing.“Programmes about the developing world have beendemoted because they have connotations of obligation.We can no longer do subjects because they are important,wheras five years ago we could” André Singer, CaféProductionsDFID – July 2000 163