Don't break the news: Why the media needs to go back to basics

Is it possible for major news organisations to report impartially on major events? In the recent US presidential election, many didn’t even try. On some American TV networks, hosts and guests choked back tears as the result became known, while the editor of one UK newspaper wrote to staff offering counselling to any poor lambs too upset by Donald Trump’s victory in – let’s remind ourselves – a free and fair democratic vote.

Another more recent example concerns the violence in Amsterdam around a football match between the Dutch team Ajax and the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv early this month.

This newspaper reported – correctly – that there had been “incitement on both sides”. But much of the initial reporting, particularly by some prominent western media outlets, was very one-sided, emphasising the attacks on Israelis while minimising the burning of Palestinian flags and the grotesque chants making fun of the hideous slaughter in Gaza. False news was also spread, when a video was said to show Israeli fans being chased and beaten by locals and pro-Palestinian fans, whereas in fact it showed the very opposite.

I have no doubt that a desire to tell a story that fitted the western narrative of a “pogrom” trumped a proper investigation of what happened, and any notion of fairness went out the window. Both these instances do us all a grave disservice. For starters, the principle of fairness is worth a lot in and of itself. But highly partisan, as opposed to impartial, reporting also has two very bad consequences.

First, many news consumers will not be properly informed, to the point that they are not actually aware of what is going on in different parts of the world, and they will continually be surprised by events.

Outsiders were astonished that Ferdinand Marcos Jr could be elected president of the Philippines in 2022, for instance. “He was the son of a dictator; he couldn’t be elected; he shouldn’t be elected” was the view of many international media outlets and they were then dismayed when he was voted in. Naturally, some blamed “disinformation” for his victory.

But perhaps they hadn’t been collecting the right information themselves. I wasn’t at all surprised that he won. In my own, admittedly unscientific, survey, every single Filipino I asked over a period of years expressed support for the iron-fisted Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 and then his successor, Mr Marcos, six years later. The people I spoke to were all intelligent, but not high-income or highly educated. Is it possible that the correspondents who thought a Marcos could never return to power had been spending a little too much time in an elite bubble?

There are plenty of other examples in South-East Asia, including what kind of reformers Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and former Indonesian president Joko Widodo are and were (clue: not so hot on the progressive issues that animate many international commentators as they hoped the pair would be).

Ignorance and lack of context inform much of the coverage of the Ukraine conflict and China, to very bad effects.

How can you begin to understand the Chinese perspective on its rightful future place in the world – that is, assuming you actually want to try – if you never provide the background of the “century of humiliation”? It may be convenient to leave out what Russia believed to be western promises not to expand Nato to its borders, or the strictly unconstitutional transfer of power in Kyiv in 2014, if you want to paint Russian President Vladimir Putin as an unprovoked aggressor, but don’t pretend you’re giving readers or viewers the full story. As a result, too many news consumers have a shallow and partial understanding both of world events and other nations and peoples.

Second, trust in legacy media is already at a terrible low – in fact it’s at a record low in the US, according to a recent Gallup survey. Consumers are still attached to the ideal of impartiality, as a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism unsurprisingly found. But if they don’t feel they’re getting it, people have an alternative they can turn to now – social media – and they are.

I found a telling post on X shortly after the Amsterdam reporting, on the lines of “this is the second time they’ve lied to us in a week”. That “they” could contain multitudes, but it’s a fair guess it includes the mainstream media. The author, I believe, meant that “they lied” that Kamala Harris was going to win the US election, and that “they” also “lied” about what happened in the Dutch capital. That sentiment may well be widely common.

Elon Musk is already boasting “you are the media now” to his followers on X, and there’s no doubt that a lot of useful information is published on the platform he owns as well as others, but we all know that there’s precious little filter or obligation to be fact-based. Likewise, there can be a value to “citizen journalism”, but if it is ranked equal to legacy media, that suggests the training, expertise and experience of great reporters is worth little – an idea that should be rebutted. After all, you wouldn’t get a “citizen plumber” to come and unblock your toilet, would you?

International media organisations desperately need to win back trust, and my view is that can only be done by making the effort to be impartial and provide fair context. If viewers and readers are (in many cases, correctly) suspicious that various agendas are constantly being pushed, they will turn away. I think the “truth” is worth fighting for – and it is very dangerous in a world that increasingly seems like it’s on the brink if common ground, on what the truth is, disappears.

“Isn’t it obvious?” you may say. But ask yourself this: is a newspaper that has offered its staff counselling because Mr Trump was re-elected really likely to report fairly on his second term in office? And don’t we all deserve that fair reporting? Leave the partisan polemics to the commentators and talking heads. Legacy media needs its reporters to leave their prejudices at the door. Only then will these organisations stand a chance of being able to fulfil the BBC’s motto – enabling nation “to speak peace unto nation”.