Preface by Tom Hopkinson
Are the men who have seized this plane and are threatening us with machine pistols `terrorists' or `freedom fighters'?
Is the fat cat on his way to establish residence in the Bahamas `evading taxes' or `protecting his legitimate earnings'? And did he acquire that fortune through `the long overdue reorganization of British industry' or by `depriving workers of their livelihoods'?
Define the terms `scrounger', `exploitation', `in the national interest'; and state under what circumstances `defensive missiles' can be used in a `preemptive strike'.
Every journalist knows that there are certain assumptions taken for granted by his own and every other newspaper, as well as by radio and television. These assumptions - that the view of the world as seen from these islands is the `true' one; that certain nations are our `friends' and certain others traditionally hostile; that laws are just and apply equally to everyone; and that capitalism is the only basis for democratic freedom - colour the way all news is selected, written up and presented, including, of course, the way in which it is photographed.
Nor is this confined to political issues and great events. Financial and industrial developments are reported in terms of `us' and `them'. We `export'; other countries `dump', particularly the developing countries which are trying to break into the manufacturers' club. Employers `make offers'; unions `reject'. Similar, if less obvious, assumptions underlie most writing about art and literature, and even sports reporting.
Those of us who have worked for some time in the media take these assumptions for granted, just as we take it for granted that we produce our copy in English, not in Arabic or Russian.
The value of a minority or alternative press is that is exposes these assumptions. In so doing it is likely to introduce assumptions of its own, which may be as liable to criticism as those it challenges. But at least the public is offered a choice and the conventions given a shake-up.
Being in opposition to the established press - particularly the popular press, whose hallmarks are complacency, servility, triviality and the avoidance of controversial issues - the minority press tends to be suspicious, investigative, denunciatory. It is also always struggling, since it can expect neither financial backing nor advertising support from the establishment it attacks; usually, too it experiences great difficulty in securing distribution.
What has made a minority press possible - And even allowed some growth and expansion in the last decade - is, first, the new technology whereby a few
thousand copies can be printed cheaply. Second, the readership, minority papers can attract by focusing on important local issues - such as corruption in high places - which the established press is unwilling or afraid to touch. And, thirdly, the readiness of young journalists, men and women, to renounce or postpone their own chances of advancement in order to work for minimal pay on small-scale publications which may last only a few months, but which can achieve something worth-while in their short lifetime.
The small radical newspaper in this country is the heir to a great tradition, and it is very much to the good that this tradition has been revived. Those who make sacrifices to carry it on are in no need of lectures on journalistic ethics from establishment figures who have made a very good thing out of not seeing further than which side their bread is buttered.
In my opinion, however, it is a mistake for minority press writers to attack objectivity and impartiality on the grounds that objectivity is a "a recent invention, a pseudo-scientific myth, and not even the most diligent journalist can hope to be objective". I understand the resistance some feel to a word which has been so much abused as `objectivity'. But dislike of a word does not justify abandoning the principle it denotes.
`Commitment journalism', `advocacy journalism', `knowing which side we're on' are no substitute for the effort to produce honest journalism; and the fact that so many journalists are unconsciously half-blind does not give others the right to be deliberately one-eyed.
I am wholly in favour of the struggle to establish newspapers, magazines and radio stations which will give the public news and information which they are not getting from the established press. But the news has to be true, and the reporting of it factual. The strength of many minority papers is precisely that their reporting has been more true, more factual, more objective than that done by newspapers with fifty times their staff and fifty thousand times their resources.
Tom Hopkinson was formerly editor of Picture Post and Founder-Director of the Centre for Journalism studies in Cardiff.
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