[Swprograms] BBC Live8 coverage - editorial issues

[Mike Barraclough <softbulletin1@xxxxxxxxx>]

A few thought from my Sunday Times column yesterday:

Live 8, and the vast moral crusade associated with it,
presents acute problems for the BBC. I do not mean
just the technical challenges involved in the live
relay from Hyde Park of the world's biggest-ever
concert, and its allied gigs over two continents, at
the start of an extraordinarily global week which will
also see broadcasts from Scotland (G8), Singapore
(Olympics decision), South Africa (an alternative G8),
Accra (Ghanaian harmonies) and Serbia (the Exit
festival, which celebrates music rather than
euthanasia). 
 
No, I mean the editorial headache. Many in the
corporation share the idealism, noble or naive, of Bob
Geldof and his cohorts. They are inspired and
galvanised by his vision of ending extreme poverty.
But, as Jenni Murray so pertinently pointed out in
Radio 4's The Message nine days ago, the BBC has to be
neutral when it comes to Live 8's political
objectives. It can cover campaigns, but must not
endorse them.
 
On television, that distinction has already been
somewhat muddied: one of Live 8's chief organisers,
Richard Curtis, was commissioned to write a primetime
drama about the cause for BBC1 - a work that was
clearly propaganda, whether one approved of the
message or not. On radio, it has been more rigorously
maintained, through a simple and proper policy of
allowing numerous points of view to be heard. 
 
Thus it is that 5 Live yesterday not only spoke to
critics of Live 8, who think the concerts could do
more harm than good, but advertised that in advance.
Airtime has also been given to a Red Pepper writer who
thinks it is absurd to expect rich nations to solve a
problem they themselves have caused; to Mark Tully,
who, unlike Live 8, emphasises Africa's spirituality
today; to those who claim that poverty is often caused
by the corruption, brutality and incompetence of
African governments, citing Zimbabwe as the obvious
example; and to Africans such as the Ugandan
broadcaster Andrew Mwenda, who argues on the World
Service's Analysis programme on Tuesday that "aid and
debt relief are fostering a culture of
irresponsibility by encouraging bad economic
behaviour...because our government has always been
able to reply on donors for aid - even the chairs in
the parliament building are donated by Denmark - it
hasn't even bothered to establish a decent tax
collection service." 

Just as there is more than one opinion to be heard,
there is more than one perspective to be seen. There
is more to Africa than bloodshed and starvation. Two
linked seasons display this at present: The New Africa
Season, which began yesterday on the BBC World
Service, and Africa Lives On The BBC, which runs
across the corporation. "They are designed to give
people a more rounded portrayal of African life and
culture than the one emphasising war, famine and
disease", is how the World Service's director, Nigel
Chapman, puts it. With programmes ranging from
Africa's taste in books (tonight, Radio 3) to
Nairobi's Congestina Achieng, the new women's world
middleweight champion and the first African woman to
hold an international boxing title (Tuesday's
Everywoman), and from this week's local radio
twinnings such as the link-up between Cornwall and
Mozambique to a report on the first opera from the
Sahara (Friday's Music Review), he and his domestic
colleagues have been as good as their word.

(Paul Donovan, uk-radio-listeners group)





	
	
		
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