Duncan Defends TV’s Trustworthiness
Television is a “trustworthy” medium, according to Channel 4’s chief executive, Andy Duncan, who spoke out last night in defence of the industry following the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ attack on the media last week.
Delivering his lecture to Faithworks, a Christian action organisation, last night, Duncan stated: “You’ve heard politicians talk about the roles Government and the churches can play in reducing what’s been labelled the ‘trust deficit’. I want to use this lecture to explore the potential of just one powerful section of the media – television – as a means of building trust in society”
The Channel 4 boss went on to describe public service television as a force for good, outlining the legal requirements for television news and factual programming to be accurate and highlighting the practices of some newspapers as being in opposition to this.
He said: “Dr. Williams may have concerns about how some television news is packaged today, but impartial and accurate reporting is a legal requirement and a point of honour for the news operations that supply the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five. The press, as we know, does it differently.”
Duncan’s lecture, at great pains to extol the virtues of television news, followed Dr Williams’ branding of journalists as “lethally damaging” last week. The archbishop went on to claim that irresponsible reporting had led to an “embarrassingly low level of trust” of the media by the public.
“I agree with Dr. Williams that the public interest defence has been degraded by those who use it as a flimsy excuse for exposing a footballer’s affair or breaching a bereaved family’s privacy,” Duncan continued. “But I also believe that most people – tabloid readers included – can sniff this kind of rotten hypocrisy a mile off.”
Duncan was particularly careful to single out Channel 4’s recent documentary series, such as its Only Human season and Jamie’s School Dinners as examples of television changing attitudes and making a difference.
Speaking of the station’s highest-profile programme of the moment, Big Brother, Duncan said: “I make no claims for Big Brother as social or moral education. First and foremost it’s an entertainment show and a very important one for us commercially, because it attracts young viewers.
“I can understand how the language and behaviour of those it features may often be at odds with those of an older generation But look more closely. Big Brother winners are all role models in their way; not only because they’ve included ethnic minorities, a gay man and a transsexual – as well as an Evangelical Christian – but because in the final analysis viewers choose people whose values they identify with, and those values are invariably honesty, integrity, constancy and kindness.”
Channel 4 recently extended its deal with Big Brother producer Endemol, signing on to air another two series of the programme, as well as securing rights to spin off programmes, interactive TV, new media and commercial activities such as books, DVDs and CDs until the end of 2007 (see Channel 4 Extends Rights To Big Brother).
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