Home Tech As tech barons increase the spread of lies, why is the BBC reducing reporting on the truth? | John Harris

As tech barons increase the spread of lies, why is the BBC reducing reporting on the truth? | John Harris

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As tech barons increase the spread of lies, why is the BBC reducing reporting on the truth? | John Harris

ohOn 4 August 2024, riots and riots following the murder of three children in Southport, Merseyside, spread further. That day, amid a mess of misinformation and far-right rumours, violence hit Rotherham – where people tried to burn down a hotel housing asylum seekers – as well as Middlesbrough and Bolton. To give notice of his newfound interest in UK affairs, Elon Musk posted an image of the violence in Liverpool on X with a characteristically measured caption: “Civil war is inevitable.” And 24 hours later, the wave of riots reached the city of Plymouth.

It took over the city center during the afternoon of August 5. To quote the Guardian report, “150 officers in riot gear and with dogs tried to keep far-right rioters and Stand Up to Racism protesters apart.” Other people came to defend a mosque. Bricks, bottles and fireworks were thrown. Six people were arrested, several police officers were injured and two citizens ended up in the hospital: one local official He said the events were unprecedented.

Where could the city’s 260,000 residents turn for reliable information? As always, while social media was full of falsehoods and provocations, more traditional media was an obvious choice. But if you tuned into your local BBC radio station while the riots were happening, you may have had no idea about any of it. BBC Radio Devon carried a report on the violence on the 6 o’clock news, but at 7 and 9 pm, Plymouth received no mention. Its other bulletins mentioned what was happening, but failed to make it the main story: the violence was both terrifying and hugely important, but the attention of the city’s supposedly most reliable news source was apparently elsewhere.

Now we know all this thanks to BBC’s response still complaint filed by David Lloyda radio veteran who has worked for both corporate and commercial stations. The relevant official document, written by the corporation’s complaints director, is quite read: it includes an admission that “there was little evidence of the BBC having a presence at the site”, something related in part to “various logistical problems” that day. at issue, including “the availability of journalists who had the required riot training,” as well as “technical problems with broadcast equipment.”

There was, the report says“elements of systemic failure.” Even online, where the modern corporation insists it must focus many of its efforts, there was neither dedicated live coverage of the Plymouth riots nor, the report suggests, enough updates posted on the big social media platforms. In this last aspect, “more would have been done if it had not been for staff furloughs.”

A spokesperson said The BBC accepts the findings of the complaints unit and had “already made adjustments to the way we work” before the Plymouth complaint was investigated. But the mix of excuses and acknowledged shortcomings remains mind-boggling. And it leaves an even bigger story intact: the corporation’s degradation of local broadcasting, and how it fits into similar changes in commercial radio, and the dismal state of the UK’s local press. The result, as Mark Zuckerberg abandons Meta fact-checking and Musk is relentlessly radicalized by his own platform, is a growing local news void: no clear idea of ​​what’s happening on people’s own doorsteps and a growing susceptibility to online lies that could soon be beyond us. anyone’s control.

Plymouth’s story is a case study in the consequences of changes that still seem chronically overlooked: cuts to BBC radio that were pushed through in 2023 and the fact that many local stations now have programs specific to their area only until the afternoon. when they share production – whether regionally or nationally – until breakfast time the next day. Audience figures suggest that this drastic reduction has left an already fragile part of the national media landscape with even fewer listeners, and has accelerated the decline of local radio, while underscoring an obvious question: whether our public service broadcaster will not ensure survival from such a key provider of grassroots news, who will do it?

It is certainly not a for-profit radio station. Eight years ago, broadcasting regulator Ofcom announced a relaxation of its rules that would allow commercial station owners to reduce their minimum amount of local programming during the day from seven hours a day to just three. In 2019, radio giant Global split more than 40 standalone breakfast shows, which were based on local news and points, into three overarching national shows, and the company’s newsrooms were subjected to skyrocketing efficiencies. Thereafter a single reporting team covered an area stretching from Cornwall to Gloucester.

And then there is the terrible fate of local newspapers that could have successfully transitioned to the online world, but have been serially mismanaged, cut and eliminated, not least by the online giants. Between 2009 and 2019, more than 320 such titles closed in the UK. Just over a year ago, Reach – the owner of Mirror, Express and dozens of local titles grouped online under the banner “Live” – announced its third round of job cuts in a year, raising the total number of positions lost about 800. Its local and regional news websites attracted an apparently healthy total monthly audience of around 35 million, but dependence on digital advertising revenue made its long-term survival look doubtful. The result, as one anonymous Reach employee put it, was obvious: “It is increasingly likely that many of our major cities – Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Newcastle, Liverpool, Cardiff and many others – will soon have no local newspaper or no recognizable local newspaper. news website that holds local authorities and others accountable.”

In some places, nimble local media outlets have begun to fill the void. In Hull, a new company called the history of the helmet was founded in 2020 as an online operation by two former Hull Daily Mail employees, and expanded into print last year: last week, its impact on the city’s experience of the 2024 riots – titled Disgrace, Resilience , Justice- won a prize for the cover of the year. The Bristol Cable has long pioneered new types of investigative reporting and political coverage, reinforced by the fact that the title is owned by its readers. Manchester has the Substack newsletter The Millwhich has now launched branches in Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield and London, where Former Guardian staffer Jim Waterson has also begun to fill the void left by the shrinking Evening Standard by launching Focused on London. All of these projects highlight a clear point: that places not only need their own journalism, but can also provide audiences to support it.

Unfortunately, the problem is that they are still outnumbered in parts of the country – let alone the world – where the worst news cycle is now a reality. Something happens, but what do people read or hear about it? Either nothing at all, or some horrible version plucked by a foreign billionaire from the fringes of the Internet or amplified algorithmically, to the point that questions of truth or falsehood disappear, and a mendacious story creates its own shock waves. If that’s the kind of future we should all strive to avoid, local reporting should be our first antidote.

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