Yet again the death of legacy media has been exaggerated

This Green and Curiously Pleasant Land - media and society

Although the telly sitting in the corner of the living room no longer plays such a pivotal part in most people's lives, the power of the collective experience of a nation watching a broadcast has not diminished.

Literally a day after the transmission of the ITV docudrama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, two decades of official prevarication came to an end. What rapidly followed was decisive action to overturn convictions, provide compensation and seriously address the culpability of those responsible for the failures of the Horizon computer system which triggered what has been described as the biggest ever miscarriage justice.

Although we are constantly told that the new centre of influence has moved from legacy media to the proliferation of social media, it was a combination of old fashioned journalism and a brilliant television drama which achieved something beyond the capability of influencers on Tik-Tok, or Instagram, YouTube or any other latest social media sensation.  

Those responsible for the drama have acknowledged their debt to the journalists who doggedly followed this saga, notably the trade publication Computer Weekly, the erratic but often vindicated Private Eye and the current affairs TV programme, Panorama, plus the vital contribution made by the journalist Nick Wallis in his book and podcast, The Great Post Office Scandal.

Wallis and other old fashioned hacks used their experience to provide the facts required for the TV drama which brought this complex story to life through the stories of the main players, crucially Alan Bates, the beleaguered postmaster whose dogged determination to take on the government and one of Britain’s largest companies has made him a national hero.

The skill of Gwyneth Hughes, the TV drama’s writer, whose background is as a journalist, was to absorb this mountain of information and turn into a relatable story.

Some people can be sniffy about trade journals like Computer Weekly but publications like this nurture specialisation that really counts when stories are complex. And the story got heft when Panorama, a long running and highly respected current affairs programme, used its experience and influence to get people on screen to give their firsthand accounts.

In other words, the out of fashion legacy media has far from exhausted its role in the communications landscape and predictions of its demise appear to be premature. What the exposure of the post office scandal confirmed was that victims of injustice, who were consistently shunned by the people in power, were listened to by journalists who have learned to be sceptical of big organisations and will pay attention to ordinary people confronted by overwhelming odds.

The legacy media provides, so to speak, a known destination for victims, whistleblowers and others with a story to tell that has been ignored by those who should be listening but decline to do so.

Lumbering old media has impact because it has the skills to deliver stories that matter. It cannot easily be replaced by, let’s be blunt, amateurs.

That said the democratisation of the media by these amateurs is not to be dismissed. Were it otherwise we would not be seeing some of the more horrific images of the war in Gaza or indeed other tragedies where a person on the spot with a smartphone has the means to convey what’s happening with an immediacy that would otherwise be lacking.

Nor is it possible to deny the ways in which the legacy media undermines its own credibility. Its failings are there for all to see, from phone hacking to impersonation and a whole lot more. The emphasis on celebrity gossip is as torrid as it is popular.

And, before those of us with a broadsheet newspaper background get too up ourselves it is worth noting that the ‘posh’ papers devote countless column inches to what is little more than pointless speculation. Even the ever so self-righteous New York Times recently provided a classic example of this with 5,000 words worth of speculation over whether Tyler Swift is gay or not and proceeded to  compound this nonsense by employing a pile of barely credible guff to pretend that this was somehow a worthy subject of vital public interest.

Well, none of us are perfect but it sure makes a change to see my trade doing its job really well and being acknowledged for so doing. To paraphrase Winston Churchill : the legacy media is the worst form of media except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Idiots of the week

Following the impressive achievement of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party in winning the presidential election for a third consecutive time, officials in Beijing, that well known repository of expertise on electoral matters, pronounced that this was proof that the winner did not have mainstream support. Their thinking, coming from a nation which has never had a democratic election, seems to be that failure to win over half the votes denotes a rejection of the winner’s policy. If this were the case then almost all democratic elections would have to be reconsidered because winning an absolute majority of votes is rarely achieved. China’s best friend, the North Korean dictatorship, does better on this score but I can’t help but wonder about the credibility of its election system.