Media is the message
Mark Byford, acting director general of the BBC, debated with culture secretary Tessa Jowell and Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee the idea that politicians and the media were all trust up in the final Progress politics of trust seminar last month.
In a lively debate in front of a packed audience, Byford, pictured above, defended the BBCs reputation post-Hutton, argued that there would always be an adversarial relationship between politicians and the media, and questioned whether controversial corporation journalists such as Todays John Humphrys and Newsnights Jeremy Paxman were really more confrontational with interviewees than their predecessors.
Byford also denied that it was the responsibility of the BBC to help raise voter turnout, instead arguing that the role of a public service broadcaster was simply to ensure that when people choose to go to the polling booths they had received informed and impartial news and analysis to help them make their decision.
The seminar was also dominated by discussion on press regulation, with Toynbee attacking the press distortion of issues such as asylum and Europe and calling for greater government regulation. Jowell, however, argued that most newspaper buyers understood they were getting comment rather than impartial news. The culture secretary ruled out any further government regulation, including placing the Press Complaints Council on a statutory basis and introducing a mandatory right to reply.