Sam's World Of No

It was widely reported today that the population of the UK is projected to 65m by 2016, an increase of 4.4 million from the current level. 2.3m of this is categorised ‘natural increase’, whereas 2.1m is attributed to the expected rate of migration. Let’s leave for a second that migration is a natural part of the population rate. Let’s also leave aside the fact that every news outlet’s concentration on migration was spurred by the National Statistics Office’s emphasis on the point. And let’s also, foolishly, leave aside the fact that there is a reason that people are trying to come into the UK. It isn’t the weather.

Let’s leave all of those things aside and look at pretty pictures. Now, in my view, this is primarily a story about statistics. So the Telegraph’s choice of the National Statistics Office’s own graph on the subject seems reasonable. But there are, obviously, wider ramifications. Find a property obviously had a specific slant on the effect, talking about the need for more housing, and they too have chosen a picture of lots of people in the street. Seems reasonable.

Politics.co.uk agrees, choosing a picture of a busy street in their coverage, with the caption, “Concerns raised over how the increase in population growth will effect public services”. Of course, the usual slant on the whole migration issue is the perceived effect it will have on infrastructure, so in some ways the BBC’s choice of image, which furthers the theme of this particular problem, is understandable. Their article features a stock picture of a busy commuter train; it was on the front page of the site for most of the day.

I think the underlying and specific message that choosing this headline image for the story is clear - our public transport system is at breaking point, and all these immigrants are going to just make it worse. Does anybody else feel that perhaps the person sourcing that image had a rough time on the tube this morning?

In my view, the BBC has in this instance crossed the line between telling the news and shaping the news.

The BBC are a credit to the national and international media, and are trying hard to push boundaries with their online presence. They are deeply postmodern in that you can read introspective blogs, such as The Editors, and after the Hutton report they are allegedly committed to being answerable and being open about the way they work. They are better than most, for sure, and they are leaders in this area where other, commercial, entities are allowed to sit on their hands. Oh, and they have a reputation for simply sucking at their choice of pictures for articles.

My academic background is in history. 20 years ago, the idea that historians, as well as journalists, would not adopt an objective and abstracted view of their material was ridiculous; it was their job to be impartial. Nowadays, we mostly accept that all façades of objectivity are conceited and create inaccurate reporting of the facts, so we admit our own subjective influences, and for many historians, these are often the more interesting parts of the stories we tell. Recognising your own subjectivity, however, is a very different thing to becoming objective - and acknowledging that you have influences that are individual and uncontrollable does not mean that you are forgiven for when your reporting is slanted and biased.

This bias isn’t limited to choice of vocabulary or choice of subject matter - choice of image is just a powerful a tool for shaping the theme of your story, and this is a story that has a serious emphasis on the migration issue. In fact, little else is mentioned. Both government ministers and right-wing pressure groups are allowed to give their point of view, as are some of the people from the other side of the debate. The image, though, takes it a step further. It makes us all think back to our morning commute - the busy roads, the packed trains and the smelly buses. It says in a message clearer than words and stronger than bold text that immigrants are going to make your life worse.

Apparently.

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