Stephen Glover on The Press

Dumping 'What the Papers Say' is a sign BBC is losing sight of its remit

The BBC's decision to get rid of What the Papers Say is as clear an indication as you could have that the Corporation is losing sight of its public service remit. For more than 50 years the programme has provided a glimpse into the workings of the Press, which I suppose is what this column tries to do in its own modest way.

During recent years, though, the BBC has done its best to let What the Papers Say wither on the vine. It was scheduled on BBC2 late on a Saturday afternoon when most of us have other things to do. So unloved was it by the BBC that on one occasion not long ago one episode was pulled after the darts had overrun. Doesn't that say it all?

The professed reason for killing off the programme – that the way most viewers "consume" news has changed – is wholly spurious. What the Papers Say was not about news so much as the operation of newspapers. Their circulation may have declined – so too has BBC television's audience – but they remain powerful and influential in our society. For example, the news agenda that the BBC itself follows is much more often than not set by the Press.

Why it has dumped the programme we can only guess. It certainly wasn't because of low ratings. Despite being buried in a dead slot, What the Papers Say usually attracted around a million viewers, about the same as Newsnight, and more than virtually any programme shown on BBC3 or BBC4. At £15,000 an episode it is one of the cheapest shows on television. Some say that it has been canned because it fell within the empire of an executive called Richard Klein, who has made enemies at the BBC as a result of a recent series championed by him that was sympathetic to the disregarded, and sometimes racist, white working class. A more likely explanation, perhaps, is that BBC executives really do believe that guff about newspapers being unimportant, and have forgotten their public service remit.

There is still scope to shame them. What the Papers Say is made by Granada, now part of ITV productions, which is looking for a new home for the programme. Sky News is one possibility. Another is Channel 4, whose chief executive, Andy Duncan, is smarting from accusations, not completely undeserved, that the station is dumbing down. Here is a heaven-sent opportunity to show that Channel 4 has not forgotten its own public service remit. He could also win some friends in Fleet Street, and strengthen the case, aired by the Tories, for Channel 4 to receive a wodge of the BBC's licence money. My bet is that, scheduled at a more propitious time, the programme would attract more viewers than on a Saturday afternoon. No doubt it could also benefit from a bit more TLC.

As for the BBC, this is a very black mark we should not forget. The more it denudes itself of serious public affairs programmes, the less it can justify its almost monopolistic position as a public service broadcaster. I don't suppose its director-general, Mark Thompson, was remotely aware of this decision. If he has any sense, he will now reverse it.

Tesco is doing itself no favours

The libel case that Tesco is bringing against The Guardian, touched on by my colleague Donald Trelford last week, continues to fascinate me. My sympathies are now veering in the Guardian's direction.

This is because one of the actions being brought by the supermarket chain alleges that Alan Rusbridger, the newspaper's editor, was guilty of malicious falsehood in running the original story, and accompanying leader, which alleged that Tesco had indulged in tax avoidance on an epic scale. The Guardian subsequently conceded, rather ungraciously, that it had got its taxes in a muddle, and had exaggerated the potential scope of Tesco's wheeze.

Surely, the idea that Mr Rusbridger maliciously ran the story and leader, knowing them to be untrue, is batty. Why would he? The Guardian's defence document makes clear that he was barely involved in their publication. The purpose of this defence, I infer, is not to wash his hands of responsibility but to establish that he could not personally have been driven by malice or a desire to disseminate lies about Tesco.

Of course, the Guardian's defence raises another question: why did Mr Rusbridger not take a greater interest in so important a story, containing, as it did, such serious allegations, which turned out to be largely untrue, against one of Britain's biggest companies? Presumably, because he was preoccupied with some great strategic issue that diverted him from the daily grind of newspaper production. There must be a lesson here.

Tesco's senior management, though, is either being badly advised, or has abandoned all good sense, or both. I should be astonished if Mr Rusbridger were found guilty of malicious falsehood by an English court. Tesco seems determined to make a martyr out of the Guardian's editor, so it will soon be entirely forgotten that the paper was ever in the wrong.

Standing up against dumbing down

Last week's first issue of the new intellectual centre-right magazine Standpoint supplied the splash of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. The Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, has written a piece suggesting that Christianity in Britain has been undermined by Marxism and Islam. The magazine could hardly have drawn greater attention to itself, and I imagine they were spitting tacks down at the Spectator.

Someone at the launch party suggested to me that Standpoint would not flourish because, unlike Encounter, which opposed Communism, it does not have one great unifying theme. I wonder. Might seriousness – which must not mean dullness – in a dumbed down world be a sufficient rallying call? It is too early to predict the success of Standpoint, but a magazine supported by the likes of Tom Stoppard, V.S. Naipaul and Frank Field is surely heading in the right direction.

scmgox@aol.com