Power Beyond Scrutiny

Justin Schlosberg

Description

Power Beyond Scrutiny uncovers the forces which distort and limit public debate in the media. From the misuse of politicians' expenses to recent phone hacking scandals, establishment corruption has never been more in the headlines. Yet amidst the din there have been seismic silences.



Justin Schlosberg interrogates these silences - why did a plea bargain which allowed Britain's biggest arms company to escape bribery prosecution go almost entirely unchallenged in television news? Why did journalists routinely endorse the official explanation of how intelligence analyst David Kelly died, whilst ignoring the mounting evidence which undermined it? Why, in 2010, did broadcasters offer an unchallenged platform to critics of Wikileaks but not its supporters?



These are some of the questions and imbalances that Schlosberg seeks to address as he explains the nature of public debate in the digital age. In doing so he uncovers a range of news blockages that are more than just accidents of a fragmented, chaotic mediascape. They are ultimately ideological forces which ensure that contestability and dissent remain within definable limits.
Preface

Introduction

PART 1: COVERING CORRUPTION

1. High Crimes

2. Framing Foundations

PART 2: COVERING THE COVER UP

3. Whispers in the Press Gallery

4. The Basis of Belief

PART 3: COVERING THE LEAK

5. The Biggest Story on the Planet

6. Behind the Wall of Transparency

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Political Process
• Political Science
• Media Studies
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 06 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849648714
• Langue: English

Extrait

Power Beyond Scrutiny

First published 2013 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Justin Schlosberg 2013
The right of Justin Schlosberg to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3292 5 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3291 8 Paperback ISBN 978 1 8496 4870 7 PDF eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4872 1 Kindle eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4871 4 EPUB eBook
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America
For Chloe
Contents
Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
Preface
1. Introduction
PART I: COVERING CORRUPTION
2. High Crimes
3. Framing Foundations
PART II: COVERING THE COVER-UP
4. Whispers in the Press Gallery
5. The Basis of Belief
PART III: COVERING THE LEAK
6. The Biggest Story on the Planet
7. Behind the Wall of Transparency
8. Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Figures and Tables
FIGURES
3.1 A progression of official source response to media ‘crisis’
4.1 Number of news editions covering the inquest controversy, January 2004 to December 2010
4.2 Number of citations in news programmes of evidence for and against official verdict
6.1 Balance of coverage between different types of cable stories
6.2 Collateral murder and the top five cable stories – comparative levels of coverage during the first week of release
TABLES
2.1 Distribution of coverage within mainstream audience channels
2.2 Analysis of coverage breadth and depth
2.3 Balance of pro-government (protagonist) and dissenting (antagonist) voices in news reports
4.1 Conflicting evidence in relation to the official verdict of Dr Kelly’s death
4.2 Number of times key Hutton findings reported without caveat or qualification, 28–30 January 2004
6.1 Comparing the prominence of sources critical and supportive of the leaks
6.2 Balance of coverage between UK and Russia-related cable stories
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the advice and guidance of Professor James Curran who supervised the doctoral research underpinning this book. I am also extremely grateful to Des Freedman and Natalie Fenton at Goldsmiths who provided support and encouragement throughout, and I received invaluable comments and feedback from Richard Keeble, Aeron Davis and Julian Petley.
This book would not have been possible without the time and insights offered by the 50 interview respondents from the world of journalism and the case studies examined. Many of them did so on condition of anonymity. Many of them have struggled tirelessly for justice and some have risked their jobs and professional reputations in the process. This book is dedicated to them. Of those that can be named, special thanks go to Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Iain Overton, Kaye Stearman, Dr Margaret Bloom, Martyn Day, Dr Michael Powers QC, Miles Goslett, Norman Baker MP, Phillip Knightley and Symon Hill.
Finally, my parents, brothers and wife – to whom I owe everything and always will.
Preface
In his revisionist account of British imperial history, John Newsinger vividly showed how dominant narratives have served to legitimise colonial power. In particular, they succeeded in disassociating the British empire from the brutality and oppression on which it was founded (Newsinger 2006:551). By such means as covertly employing local forces to quash rebellion through mass torture and killing, the legacy of a ‘kinder, gentler’ empire was sustained and persists in contemporary history books.
But in today’s media-saturated environment, it is clearly harder to make crimes of the powerful so invisible. Ours is a reality in which we know of systemic abuse of power by corporations, military and governments – to some extent – by virtue of a growing transparency culture. That culture owes much to advancements in communications technology but also something to ‘the collapse of social deference toward elites in every walk of life’ (McNair 2003).
The public inquiry – in all its varying forms – is perhaps one of the defining features of the contemporary media age. The subjection of powerful people to intense questioning on our TV screens has become an almost ritualistic affair. Virtually no individual or institution seems beyond its reach and we have become accustomed to seeing prime ministers, bankers, media moguls, heads of police and even spies publicly ‘humbled’ in the face of aggressive questioning and seemingly relentless scrutiny. At the same time, digital communications have dismantled information monopolies pouring light into the informal networks of power that have long been accustomed to operating in the shadows. Such is the promise of information societies that no institution – public or private – is wholly immune to the surveying eyes of digitally-enabled publics.
In conducting research for this book, I wanted to find out what all this means for the capacity of traditional media – still the dominant news providers – to hold authority to account; what it means for the endurance of capitalist societies through foundation-rattling crises; and above all, what it means for democracy in the twenty-first century. Though scandal is by no means a new phenomenon in capitalist democracies, the present rate of public inquiries would suggest that it reaches beyond the mere salacious, or a narrow consensus of acceptable controversy. It is, on the surface at least, reflective of a growing resistance of concentrated power through the news media.
But in the midst of unprecedented exposure of institutional corruption, there is a nagging sense in which the promise of accountability remains unfulfilled. Inquiries come and go, often ending in farce or delayed far beyond the ever shortening attention span of the rolling news media; rank and file personnel are fired or prosecuted whilst their bosses are absolved of responsibility; scandals become submerged by other scandals; and with each new government comes the promise of a new era of openness and sincerity, only to descend into apparent sleaze and spin anew.
Contemporary democratic discourse places emphasis on accountability as the basis of power legitimacy and the scholarly literature across disciplines has reserved a special space for the media in that process, for better or for worse. But exactly who is held to account, when, how and by whom, remain troubling questions in the study of media, politics and power. Amidst displays of adversarial journalism without fear or favour, how far are powerful interests still able to control the agenda and manipulate outcomes? To what extent do notions like the ‘great British democracy’ and the ‘end of secrecy’ play a functional role in the legitimation of power in a similar way to which constructions like a ‘force for good’ have long justified imperial advance and conquest?
This book also interrogates the notion of media spectacle in a different way to that in which it has been commonly applied in critical media theory. In particular, its intimate association with sensationalism and tabloidisation threatens to obscure the role of spectacle in what are considered the mainstays of ‘serious’ or responsible news. The Sun might still be the most popular newspaper in Britain, and online news the fastest growing platform, but it is the serious news outlets of traditional media – public service broadcasting, broadsheets, weeklies etc. – which remain by far the most credible sources of news and information. And it is credibility which holds the key to ideological power.
The book marks the culmination of three years of research involving extensive analysis of archived television news programmes, as well as more than 50 interviews with a cross section of news producers and actors including journalists, news executives, politicians, campaigners, press officers, lawyers and civil servants. The core subject is terrestrial television news in the UK – a public service regulated platform with a longstanding reputation for high quality journalism.
My overall concern is not so much with scandal involving official misconduct or misdemeanour, but rather controversies that point to systemic institutional corruption of the kind that transcends individuals and party politics. These controversies are no longer rare exceptions in the contemporary newscape and their existence raises profound questions about the scope of accountability through the media. There has, however, been surprisingly little critical assessment of such coverage. This provided the overarching motivation for the research which led to this book; a core premise being that only by examining those instances where mechanisms of accountability appear most far reaching, can we gain a new understanding of ideological power in the age of transparency.
1
Introduction
ACCOUNTABILITY AND LEGITIMATION OF POWER
Starting from the notion that authority is legitimised power, Max Weber articulated three bases of legitimation: the personality of leaders, traditional deference and rational-legal bureaucracy (Weber 1993). Although legitimation historically consisted in some combination of these, it is rational-legal authority which is the primary source of legitimation in modern western states. Popular allegiance