Across the pond

There is no better way to illustrate how the internet has changed British journalism than to examine how the Governor and the Call Girl story was handled this morning.

Thanks to my noctural blogging about Governor Spitzer of New York last night I got up late. So it was 9 AM when I turned on the television to BBC News 24, internationally respected for its all day all night coverage the serious news. The first item was about what might happen in Britain. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s latest wheeze in his efforts to secure a place in history before the electors throw him out at the next election.

 Brown wants British school children to be forced, like those in America, to start the day by swearing allegience to the flag. The story was treated very responsibly with lots of interviews from relevant people, leaving viewers in no doubt that this loony idea was never likely to reach the statute book. The best Brown can hope for is that some schools will voluntarily institute such an early morning ritual, so long as they agree that the children of republicans, who are allowed to affirm in the law courts instead of swearing on the bible, to stay away while the others are pledging their loyalty to the Queen as head of state and boss of the Christian Church of England. Republicans are thin on the ground in Britain. But there are lots of schools which have a majority of children from Muslim or Roman Catholic families. Whatever Gordon Brown wants neither the House of Commons nor the House of Lords will pass a law to force their children to bow down to the Queen instead of the Pope or Allah.

I watched the sub-titles scrolling across the screen. No mention of Spitzer. I waited and waited until the news in brief items were dealt with. Another suicide bomb in Pakistan which might have serious political implications given the precarious position of the president who was roundly defeated in the recent elections. A joke about how the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, does not yet know what will be in today’s budget speech, because Gordon Brown has still not finished writing it.

So I switched over to Sky News, the only competitor in Britain to the BBC in the twenty four news programme. There was my ex-student and dearly beloved friend, Dermot Murnaghan, presenting virtually the same items as the BBC, and looking pretty bored doing it. No mention there either the Governor’s sexploits and its impact on the presidential election, where the Democratic Party is already being damaged daily by the battle between Clinton and Obama.

So I switched off the telly and returned to my computer. First stop, the Daily Mail web site. I had to scroll down quite a way before I got to it, but it was worth scrolling for. Probably over two thousand words, in clear but sober language, reporting the sex, the wire-tapping, and explaining why the Presidential election will be affected by the this scandal, because of the close links between the Governor of New York State and the Senator for New York City, Hillary Clinton.

Well, I thought, this shows that there is nothing to beat the printed word, even when the words are printed on screens, when there is a complex story to deal with. Must be difficult for those telly journalists to explain on television that ‘One of America’s forty nine Governors does not resign’ is actually the most important story of the day.

But then I went in to the Daily Mirror web site. There it was right at the top as the first item on Mirror TV. The one minute video got the essence of the story by showing a clip of the non-resignation news conference followed by a photo of the New York Times front page with a voice-over explaining the allegations and how they were being dealt with in the court case. I cannot give you the URL for this story because when I checked just now, it as no longer the lead on Mirror TV and I could only find a two sentence clip that did not explain anything.

Reflecting more on the way journalism is done now I think the main reason why the broadcasters failed to deal with the Spitzer story is because they are much more tightly regulated than the press in Britain. They have to employ lots of lawyers to keep an eye on stories like this, where no-one has yet been convicted of anything. Not Governor Spitzer. Not even the alleged Prostitution Ring, whose case has only just started in the courts. If the broadcasters get a story like this wrong it puts Sky at risk of having its licence revoked and it puts the BBC at risk of a cut in the television licence fee, which all people in Britain must pay.

Most of the mainstream American websites think that Spitzer is doomed and that he will resign soon, even as early as today. If he does it will be on the main BBC and ITV 10 PM news bulletins tonight. Else I shall have some explaining to do tomorrow.