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For, our Editor Phil Parry evidence today of a fightback over the decline in long-form television news only confirms his despair at the closure of investigative programmes, as executives chase ratings and advertisers.
Earlier Phil described how he was helped to break into the South Wales Echo office car when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early career as a journalist, the importance of experience in the job, and making clear that the ‘calls’ to emergency services as well as court cases are central to any media operation.
He has also explored how poorly paid most journalism is when trainee reporters had to live in squalid flats, the vital role of expenses, and about one of his most important stories on the now-scrapped 53 year-old BBC Wales TV Current Affairs series, Week In Week Out (WIWO), which won an award even after it was axed, long after his career really took off.
Phil has explained too how crucial it is actually to speak to people, the virtue of speed as well as accuracy, why knowledge ofhistory and teaching the subject is vital, how certain material was removed from TV Current Affairs programmes when secret cameras had to be used, and some of those he has interviewed.
He has disclosed as well why investigative journalism is needed now more than ever although others have different opinions, how the coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown played havoc with media schedules, and the importance of the hugely lower average age of some political leaders compared with when he started reporting.
Sometimes it is difficult to take in.
The scale of change has been breathtaking – with now news of growing dissatisfaction among journalists that BBC Newsnight (on which I have worked) is being cut to 30 minutes, and its headcount slashed from 57 to 23.
This follows the complete CLOSURE of a string of investigative television programmes.
Public Eye (on which I have also worked), has gone – as has Rough Justice, First Tuesday, World in Action, This Week and The Big Story.
Perhaps most shockingly, BBC Cymru Wales’ Week In, Week Out (WIW0), which I presented for 10 years, closed its doors after 53 years, even though it had won scores of awards.
Panorama (on which I have worked as well), is now one of the only ones left, but is a shadow of its former self.
Five years ago the BBC said it was reducing seven Panorama production staff down to four, and creating two ‘additional’ roles (they always try to put a positive spin on it), but in fact this resulted in the net LOSS of two important jobs.
Correspondents from the ‘News’ pool (news journalism is TOTALLY different), or ‘celebrities’ are brought in to present programmes.
These things always seem to be about saving money, and officials did indeed confirm even in 2018, that they expected to save over £1 million across the BBC’s ENTIRE Current Affairs output, and that included £630,000 from the planned Panorama cuts alone.
Goodness only knows what the ‘saving’ is now.
Yet there are signs that the bean-counters may have to confront growing anger.
One journalist on Newsnight told me: “Everyone is in despair at all of this. The suits just don’t seem to value the kind of journalism we do. But they are not going to have it all their own way, because we have made our feelings clear”.
The plight of Newsnight even became the subject of a satirical item in the Christmas edition of Private Eye, which showed a picture of an air-head group of ‘presenters’ wearing colourful jerseys, with the headline above it declaring pointedly: “NEW-LOOK NEWSNIGHT UNVEILED”.
Emily Maitlis, who, until last year was presenter of the show, said she was worried “extraordinary and exceptional journalism” would now be lost, and stated that the famous Prince Andrew interview would not happen under the new format.
“Of course there will still be interviews and debates and the theme music will carry on”, she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“But once the bosses send out a signal they don’t really *care* about a flagship investigative news programme – the guests and the audience start to wonder why they should … ”.
Perhaps the public SHOULD really care – not simply about BBC Newsnight and Panorama, but all the other programmes that have gone COMPLETELY, because they hold people to account!
The memories of Phil’s astonishing decades-long award-winning career in journalism (including his years on investigative TV programmes) as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – how throughout his career, Phil has always spotted as important, alternative stories to those that are dominating the news, and now comes disturbing evidence of exactly this, as more worrying information comes to light of world trade routes being affected by terrorism.
