Newsnight Scotland’s first half last night was devoted to the question of what lasting benefit, if any, will result from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. It started well, asked the right questions of the right people, including Dr. Libby Porter of Glasgow University, who as far as I know is Scotland’s only expert on international urban regeneration projects, and John Beattie, former rugby internationalist and now a broadcaster.
Both made highly relevant contributions: both questioned if there was any real legacy of such events. Dr. Porter asked what should be the central questions in this debate - who benefits by such projects, and the one that is never asked - who suffers because of them? The answer is clear - property developers, athletes and politicians benefit, and the local people - the beating heart of the area being ‘developed’ - suffer, and are, on occasion, destroyed economically and emotionally by the development juggernaut.
This first part of the Newsnight item occupied one third of the total time budget - the remaining two thirds were devoted to a talking heads studio discussion of mind-bending banality and irrelevancy between Gordon Brewer and Doug Gillen, a sports journalist, and Professor Joe Goldblatt of Queen Margaret University.
Newsnight Scotland had the choice, of course, of including real people, ordinary Scots whose lives had been turned upside down by Glasgow City Council and the Commonwealth Games developers - the Dalmarnock families and small businesses, who have been forced out of their homes and have received no compensation whatsoever because they had the temerity to challenge the derisory sums offered to them, while already rich property developers were having millions thrown at them by GCC - or the mothers of the disabled children who are wholly dependent on The Accord Centre, which is being taken away from them, with no satisfactory replacement.
But such an injection of real life and real people into the debate would have been emotional, untidy and difficult to manage, whereas a couple a talking heads, however, irrelevant to the debate, was the infinitely easier option, the default choice of lazy journalists and lazy producers everywhere.
Alternatively, Newsnight Scotland could have given Libby Porter a place on the panel, or even the total slot, because she has lived and breathed the Dalmarnock experience, got involved with the real, vulnerable human beings who are obscured by the glib PR of politicians and Glasgow Council, and their ever-compliant companions, the Scottish Press. Libby, an Australian, didn’t just theorise in the groves of academe, she was there on the streets, and behind the barricades, sharing the pain when the full force of the Glasgow City Council, the law and the Glasgow Police were thrown against one of the families, the Jaconellis.
The Sun's horrifying eviction report and video
I look forward to the New Scotland after independence, but some of its people and its institutions are going to have to take a long, hard look at themselves if they are to be a part of it. The people of Dalmarnock have been betrayed by their media, their press and above all, by the professional classes of Scotland, with a tiny number of glowing exceptions.
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Peter, join the club. You've stoutly backed-up the BBC before, but what's coming home to roost is that there is undoubtedly a policy within BBC to manage news in a certain light. This is the case in Scotland, ergo, it must be endemic throughout the whole BBC system. There cannot be mavericks operating outwith BBC editorial policy only in BBC Scotland, so if it is condoned it must be BBC policy.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC are held by many to be suspect when it comes to "establishment" issues - and in this case, Labour controlled GCC are not in any way properly investigated over this Jaconelli affair.
So good for STV and more power to their elbow in providing un-spun, un-managed news coverage.
Thanks, Barontorc.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's a conspiracy, or managing news a certain way, it's just journalistic laziness.
I picked the STV clip - I could just as well have picked several BBC clips, in fact, I wish I had, because YouTube/STV blocks STV clips outside the UK.
STV's coverage has been as partial and inadequate as all the other coverage - they all came too late to the story, covered it briefly for sensationalism, then dropped it.
There isn't an investigative journalist in the Scottish press worth a light ...
Peter, don't be curmudgeonly - IMO the BBC are "at it" big time and STV deserve some plaudits for at least this one article in your clip and surely we need to encourage those that will get stuck in - Ian Bell, Iain McWhirter, Joan McAlpine, Gerry Ponsonby (STV) come immediately to mind - then there's yourself, Gerry Hassan, Kenneth Roy and fortunately many more through their own outlets.
ReplyDeleteI admire all of these as independent commentators on a range of topics, but none of them qualifies as an investigative journalist, none of them break news stories, and none of them - with the possible exception of Joan McAlpine - has defended or written about the plight of the Dalmarnock families to my knowledge, although since I can't read everything, I would be delighted to be proved wrong. (I must be more cautious about Kenneth Roy, since I haven't read as much of his stuff as I probably should.)
ReplyDeleteBut then, they all have to make a living - I don't, and can be as curmudgeonly as I like ...
Postscript: A Kenneth Roy quote I missed -
ReplyDelete"Scottish Review
We need artists to show us how it is. We need an artist to show us the price of bread and circuses in Glasgow, the recent brutal eviction of Mrs Jaconelli from her home to make way for the Commonwealth Games village. Naturally there is a political consensus that these games are a marvellous thing for Scotland – you will not hear a word against them during the present campaign – and that a single thrawn Glaswegian woman must not be allowed to stand in their way. For some reason, Mrs Jaconelli made the Commonwealth Games impossible. So they came in force one early morning and threw her out."