However, there are two channels which have upheld the very best in BBC quality. One is BBC Radio 4. Anyone who wants enjoyable, intelligent, probing, wide-ranging and well-produced radio programmes should listen to Radio 4 - as do most journalists, writers, politicians, teachers and other professionals in Britain. Many people get their essential news from Radio 4 rather than the TV channels because it is more detailed and less driven by the need to show pictures. The other channel is the BBC World Service which is actually funded by the Foreign Office, but for which the same BBC principles apply. All over the world we know that people listen to the BBC World Service and trust what they are told. This is a great privilege and responsibility which leads to much discussion about which countries should be provided with what services and how to ensure that the news really is trustworthy.
Russians are as familiar as we are with commercial broadcasting. It raises as many problems of responsible control and open-minded judgement as the ownership and editorship of newspapers. While some channels are extremely popular, most people still watch (and trust) the BBC when they want to find out what is happening in the world.
Although journalists have for years been turning to the Internet to search for specialist websites, and have been listening to bloggers because blogs have been seen as democratic, spontaneous responses to what is actually happening, the journalists often find it difficult to decide on the source and value of such material. (They find it difficult to evaluate the people they meet and the information they reach through print, but they have been trained to use these traditional sources.) Meanwhile, readers use all kinds of sites in order to get hold of information that used not to be available to them. The BBC and most newspapers have websites that have to compete with other popular and unorthodox sites. The relationship between journalists, editors and readers when they are all using the internet is extremely confusing; moreover the internet is developing in unexpected ways. In a book like this I cannot predict on these developments; and you will be much more familiar with them than I am.
Despite the growing influence of the internet, I do not believe that television, radio and even newspapers are going to disappear. They have too important and serious a role in bringing news, information and well-informed opinion to a community. In Britain at least we enjoy sharing the knowledge that we read the same paper as thousands of other people, that we 'know' the people who write for it and who help to shape our opinions; and millions of us, every day, share the communities created by the various programmes of the BBC. This is an important role for the national media which clearly matters to readers, viewers and listeners. Such shared experience is part of what makes us British.
Long before radio and television were invented newspaper editors and journalists and their readers proclaimed that 'Freedom of the Press' was an essential freedom in any civilized country. They argued that newspapers should be able to publish whatever they wanted without being controlled and censored by powerful authorities, governments, tyrants, oligarchs or people with special interests. Many battles were fought over freedom of the press, sometimes when one mob attacked another mob, sometimes when journalists were tried, imprisoned and even executed for writing and publishing information displeasing to the authorities. In Western Europe the principle of freedom of the press was well-established by the beginning of the twentieth century, while in other societies it took a long, long time to establish the notion that ordinary people should have easy access to news and information and controversial opinions. UNESCO now regards this as a basic human right.
'Freedom' does not mean 'absolute freedom'. For example, Britain has quite powerful libel laws which mean that stories criticising individuals have to be scrutinised by lawyers to make sure that they are not breaking the law. (Sometimes editors decide that the news story is so important that it must be published even if the accused person decides to sue for libel. This attitude is summed up as 'Publish and be damned!') We also have strong laws against assuming in the public media that someone is guilty until they have been tried in a court and found guilty. In Britain any arrested person is innocent until proved guilty. American journalists are much more prepared to publish an article in which they say, 'He committed the murder' before there has been a trial. These issues are not too controversial because they can be decided by law.
The real difficulties occur when the government believes that certain information should not be told to the people because it might endanger national security. In wartime censorship of the press prevails in all nations. But 'national security' can be used as a defence for censorship when it really means 'This is embarrassing or shameful for the government and we do not want people to know about it.' That attitude has certainly been taken by the British government on many occasions in the last twenty years; fortunately brave newspaper editors and the BBC have challenged the government as much as they could; embarrassment should not mean censorship! Nonetheless we know that many unpleasant matters, especially in international negotiations are hidden from ordinary citizens whose interests should be the first concern of the government. Finding out what is really going on is the job of investigative journalists, often with the help of 'whistle-blowers'. Whistle-blowers are individuals who are prepared to risk their careers by informing the media of wrong-doing by the firm or institution or ministry where they work. Whistle-blowing implies a sensitive and difficult choice between loyalty and telling the truth. Each case has to be examined by journalists on its merits. On the whole the British public support those who speak out, and distrust government claims that security requires secrecy.
Recently a poll was taken in twenty different countries to find out what their citizens thought about the relationship between the media and their government. The report on this poll stated that In all nations polled there is robust support for the principle that the media should he free of government control and that citizens should even have access to material from hostile countries. With just a few exceptions majorities say that the government should not have the right to limit access to the internet. But while most publics say the government should not have the right to prohibit publishing material it thinks will be politically destabilizing, a majority in several predominantly Muslim countries and nearly half of Russians say that governments should have such a right. [WorldPublicOpinion.org]
So here is a big difference between Britain and Russia (though it must be said that the difference is more between Russia and some Muslim countries on the one hand, and the rest of the world on the other). Not only did nearly 90% of the British believe in the freedom of the press, but 69% thought this should include material which might destabilize the government. Britain had the largest proportion (71%) of those who believed the media in their country had a lot of freedom. This means that we take for granted, freedoms which Russians sometimes fear. We are used to stable government - and have a long tradition, stretching back hundreds of years, of speaking our minds without suffering penalties for doing so.