Media liberalism

The Centre for Policy Studies is publishing a paper tomorrow, Confessions of a Reformed BBC Producer, by Antony Jay, co-writer of Yes, Minister. Robin Aitken, a more recent employee of the BBC who has spoken out on its institutional bias with his book, has yet to be interviewed about it by the BBC. The Telegraph has a large extract of Jay's paper, highlights of which are below:

The chattering classes: "They are that minority characterised (or caricatured) by sandals and macrobiotic diets, but in a less extreme form found in the Guardian, Channel 4, the Church of England, academia, showbusiness and BBC News and Current Affairs, who constitute our metropolitan liberal media consensus - though the word “liberal” would have Adam Smith rotating at maximum velocity in his grave. Let's call it "media liberalism"."

Tonight programme: "My stint coincided almost exactly with Macmillan's premiership, and I do not think my ex-colleagues would quibble if I said we were not exactly diehard supporters. But we were not just anti-Macmillan; we were anti-industry, anti-capitalism, anti-advertising, anti-selling, anti-profit,     anti-patriotism, anti-monarchy, anti-Empire, anti-police, anti-armed forces, anti-bomb, anti-authority. Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it."

On the Queen Mother: "It was (and is) essentially, though not exclusively, a graduate phenomenon. From time to time it finds an issue that strikes a chord with the broad mass of the nation, but in most respects it is wildly unrepresentative of national opinion. When the Queen Mother died the media liberal press dismissed it as an event of no particular importance, and were mortified to see the vast crowds lining the route for her funeral, and the great flood of national emotion that it released."

To look down on society from above, from the point of view of the ruling groups, the institutions, is to see the dangers of the organism splitting apart, the individual components shooting off in different directions, until everything dissolves into anarchy. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for order, discipline, control, authority and organisation.

To look up at society from below, from the point of view of the lowest group, the governed, is to see the dangers of the organism growing ever more rigid and oppressive until it fossilises into a monolithic tyranny. Those who see society in this way are preoccupied with the need for liberty, equality, self-expression,     representation, freedom of speech and action and worship, and the rights of the individual.

Inherently anti-institution: "Ever since 1963, the institutions have been the villains of the media liberals. The police, the armed services, the courts, political parties, multinational corporations - when things go     wrong, they are the usual suspects. In my media liberal days our attitude to institutions varied from suspicion to hostility."

On Margaret Thatcher: "It often surprised me how regularly the retired brigadier from Bournemouth and the taxi driver from Ilford were united against our media liberal consensus. Those same media liberals who today demonise Margaret Thatcher simply cannot understand why she won big majorities in three successive general elections and is judged by historians around the world as having been Britain's most   successful peacetime prime minister of the 20th century."

Disdain for local government: "We were in a tribal institution, but we were not of it. Nor did we have any geographical tribe; we lived in commuter suburbs, we knew very few of our neighbours, and took not the slightest interest in local government. In fact we looked down on it. Councillors were self-important     nobodies and mayors were a pompous joke. We belonged instead to a dispersed ''metropolitan-media-arts-graduate'' tribe."

Group-think: "We met over coffee, lunch, drinks and dinner to reinforce our views on the evils of apartheid, nuclear deterrence, capital punishment, the British Empire, big business, advertising, public relations, the Royal Family, the defence budget… it's a wonder we ever got home. We so rarely encountered any coherent opposing arguments that we took our group-think as the views of all right-thinking people."

Ignorance of the realities of government: "We saw ourselves as part of the intellectual élite, full of ideas about how the country should be run, and yet with no involvement in the process or power to do anything about it. Being naïve in the way institutions actually work, yet having good arts degrees from reputable universities, we were convinced that Britain's problems were the result of the stupidity of the people in charge. We ignored the tedious practicalities of getting institutions to adopt and implement ideas."

Ignorance of the market economy: "That ignorance is still there. Say ''Tesco'' to a media liberal and the patellar reflex says, "Exploiting African farmers and driving out small shopkeepers". The achievement of   providing the range of goods, the competitive prices, the food quality, the speed of service and the ease of parking that attract millions of shoppers every day does not show up on the media liberal radar."

Faith-based liberalism: "For a time it puzzled me that after 50 years of tumultuous change the media liberal attitudes could remain almost identical to those I shared in the 1950s. Then it gradually dawned on me: my BBC media liberalism was not a political philosophy, even less a political programme. It was an ideology based not on observation and deduction but on faith and doctrine. We were rather weak on facts and figures, on causes and consequences, and shied away from arguments about practicalities. If defeated on one point we just retreated to another; we did not change our beliefs."

Media liberalism is now establishment: "Today, we see our old heresy becoming the new orthodoxy: media liberalism has now been adopted by the leaders of all three political parties, by the police, the courts and the Churches. It is enshrined in law - in the human rights act, in much health and safety legislation, in equal opportunities, in employment protections, in race relations and in a whole stream of edicts from Brussels."

Jeremy Hunt, the new Shadow Minister for Media, Culture and Sport will soon answer your questions on the BBC and other issues.

Comments

[George Hinton]

What a lovely hatchet job.

And the truth as well, oh deep joy.

What's the betting that the "meejah" ignore it, or rather play the man and smear him as some sort of fascist.

[Simon Newman]

Antony Jay:
"Almost anything that made the world a freer, safer and more prosperous place, you name it, we were anti it."

A classic line. :)

"Today, we see our old heresy becoming the new orthodoxy: media liberalism has now been adopted by the leaders of all three political parties, by the police, the courts and the Churches. It is enshrined in law - in the human rights act, in much health and safety legislation, in equal opportunities, in employment protections, in race relations and in a whole stream of edicts from Brussels."

The tragedy of this is that a civilisation totally dominated by left-liberalism looks likely to be unable to sustain itself for more than a few decades. Before the 1997 general election the Daily Mail predicted the end of "a thousand years of British
history". I laughed then at this ridiculous notion.

I'm not laughing now.

[mark]

The article confirms what I have always thought, that liberals/marxists are just people with a chip on their shoulder who have never fully grown up. Anthony Jay must be congratulated for confirming that this damaging group in society is generated by the university system from whence they go into another part of society where they are sheltered from the real world and their prejudice festers.
We now have the technology to bypass these people and make our own choices over the material we watch. Rid us of the BBC and allow people to use the money extorted from them via the licence fee to buy material of their own choice via broadband internet.

[Frank McGarry]

"Liberalism" is a terrible misnomer. These people are basically frustrated Marxists.
They are about as liberal and as democratic as the Liberal-Democrats.

Socialism doesn't work - Capitalism does.
Even the Communist Chinese can see that.

The BBC will be anti-Antony now!
More strength to Mr Jay's pen.

[John]

Mark:

Much as I sympathise with your views the result of getting rid of the BBC will likely give more power to that demagogue Murdoch.

The internet will not truly become a force for another 10-20 years and then will still be prone to the same demagoguery.

We must keep the BBC and keep reforming and restricting it until it gets the message that bias is unacceptable.

[Alex Swanson]

The problem is that there is nothing new here. We always knew this. The question is, what are senior Conservative Party MPs going to do about it? Their record over years has been one of cowardice at best, and the Cameron approach appears to be complete surrender.

[Bruce Mackie]

This is so true, It is high time that these liberal or socialists were removed from this position of influence in the Media. Let us by alll means have a 'free' Press and Media but it should not be as onesided as it has been over many years. The Campbell Diaries were accepted without much questioning except on Radio 4 Today programme. But even then it was not pursued futher than a brief instance on that Programme. The other's in the Media allowed this man who was responsible for the creation of spin(lies) to sustain the Blair Government without scrutiny. Do not even allow Gordon Brown to escape his part in this. He was addressing a Labour conference today and as I watched it on TV,I was being asked to take on board a new set of policies of the new PM.It was as if Gordon Brown as Chancellor had nothing to do with the policies of the Blair Gov. Do not let him get off the hook! He must be exposed over the part he played. It is not enough for him to attempt to wipe the slate clean.He was part and parcel over the whole of the labour Gov.

[malcolm]

'We always knew this'-Alex Swanson. By 'We', I assume you mean Alex dyed in the wool Conservatives.We may have done but the general public certainly have not. Every poll I've ever seen paints the BBC (really the only media organisation that I'm bothered about)as a trusted source of news.I suspect after recent events will change many peoples perception and for that I'm delighted.

[Simon Newman]

John:
"We must keep the BBC and keep reforming and restricting it until it gets the message that bias is unacceptable"

I would much rather see a genuinely free broadcast media with a diversity of opinions, currently we have: cultural-Marxist BBC (and ITV + Sky News do C-M lite), and on cable there's Revolutionary Islamist (Islam Channel), US-Neocon-Jingoist (Fox News), Marxist-Islamist (Al Jazeera English language), a drove of standard cultural-Marxist (CNN, Europe News, etc), and some other stuff like CCTV (Chinese state news).

Note that I can turn to Islam Channel and see a discussion about how best to destroy western civilisation and institute the Caliphate, but I can't see mainstream Conservatism views on TV. If I want that I have to go to 18 Doughty Street on the Internet.

I'd like to see a diversity of political standpoints on mainstream UK broadcast news.

[TomTom]

We must keep the BBC and keep reforming and restricting it until it gets the message that bias is unacceptable.

Posted by: John | July 14, 2007 at 14:06

That will be very difficult when vast numbers do not migrate to digital platforms with the BBC the licence-fee collapses as a funding mechanism

[towcestarian]

"media liberalism has now been adopted by the leaders of all three political parties". Yes that means the Boy Cameron and all his media-liberal lackeys. The Antony Jay pamphlet is as much an attack on the current Conservative party as it is an attack on the BBC. I wonder what sort of spin Jeremy Hunt can use to deflect this accusation?

[Bill]

Even though I was only a child during, I can still recall being irritated by the BBC's world view as far back as the 60s and early 70s. Both in news, current affairs, and entertainment programming the BBC undermined the "old" establishment and its institutions whilst treating internal and external threats to our country with excessive and undeserved respect.

[Alex Swanson]

Malcolm: You're right. Sad but true. Unfortunately, as I say, the senior Conservatives who should have been leading the fight against it have not. We keep hearing that "we must move to the centre" or "we must modernise", which is just code for "We must not say anything that BBC staffers wouldn't like".

What's especially frightening is some people (no names no pack drill) I suspect are in any case in sympathy with the BBC/Guardianista world view and don't even want to fight, let alone have the moral courage or intellectual ability to do so.

[American]

You Brits give me hope!

Saw this on www.f**kfrance.com

Cheers!