BLAIR, HUTTON, US:
I cannot recommend this piece by Martyn Kettle in the Guardian too highly. There's a phrase in it that rings in my ears - and not always too comfortingly. He quotes a former collague's reminiscence about one Rod Liddle, the man who hired the infamous Andrew Gilligan at the BBC:
"Rob didn't want conventional stories. He wanted sexy exclusives ... I remember Rod once at a programme meeting saying 'Andrew gets great stories and some of them are even true' ... He was bored by standard BBC reporting."
I must say I've had my own Brit-glib moments in journalism, when I've too easily disparaged worthy, accurate but "boring" reporting or commentary. Being boring in journalism is not a good thing; but not being boring isn't always a good thing either. The need to be fresh can lead to cheap shots or sloppy research. These are forgivable. But what isn't forgivable is the slow and insidious slide into media arrogance and cynicism. London's media can at times represent the worst of this. In this country, we're not much better. It is hard, for example, to make the case that the Bush administration made honest but real mistakes about intelligence from Saddam's Iraq. One side adamantly wants to believe that the Bushies lied; the other side wants to believe that there were no mistakes. In a completely cynical, polarized culture, it's hard to break out of this cycle. I'm particularly concerned about the use of the term "lying." I cannot claim total innocence in this, and every now and again, it may even be an accusation that's merited. But these days, every mistake people make is immediately denounced as a matter of bad faith. When that happens routinely, political discourse simply cannot operate civilly. Gilligan accused Blair of lying. That's different than claiming Blair was wrong. When we have lost that distinction, democratic debate is over. Which is why I get this horrible feeling that debate in this country has morphed into a kind of cultural warfare that will at some point devour us all.
- 1:20:46 AM
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