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Digital Economy Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Puttnam. I have not spoken in this debate so far for several reasons, so I hope I will be excused if I speak for slightly longer than my noble friend. We are in a dangerous spot. One man’s impartiality is another man’s oppression. One woman’s notion of plurality is another woman’s idea of unlicensed, unpalatable excess. It is not easy, but we have to face up to it. A sense of impartiality, and one clearly recognised to be such, in major news bulletins is essential for the functioning of a democracy. A democracy is difficult enough in a number of ways, these days, as people’s demands increase in number and volume; as the state increases its reach and responsibility and as private companies understandably drive harder for profit and control and markets in the new precarious multi-choice media world. We have to address it and we have to get it right. Especially here, in your Lordships’ House which, over recent years, has increasingly been called on to defend the basic rights of men and women in this country. On the one hand we have an asserted fear that the size and historical clout of the BBC tends to make it an overdominant statist voice, threatening a monopoly for its viewpoint. I do not see or hear that on the BBC news bulletins. Its independence is often tested but it still remains intact. It seems to me largely still to strive towards an admirable impartiality and, on a British empirical common-sense reckoning, it still provides a fine example, well followed by other news bulletins in this country—those on Channel 4, ITV and Sky—although, as my noble friend Lord Puttnam pointed out, there have been siren voices. This can be seen more starkly across the Atlantic. The United States is worth looking at briefly because of the history of American influence on our media culture. I refer to the discussion now under way in the States on Fox News, which your Lordships will know about. A recent opinion poll suggested that it was the most trusted news operation in the country. After that poll, Mike Hoyt, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, explored the issue. He said that "fair and balanced" may be the network’s motto, but in many respects it is anything but. He said: ""Fox News is not really a news network it’s a commentary network. Its news output is a small island in a vast sea of very conservative commentary"." Dean Denham, president of Public Policy Policing, the North Carolina-based survey firm that carried out the poll, said the Fox strategy had been brilliant commercially, but its implications were troubling. He said: ""That people see the network as trustworthy is worrying in terms of the future of reasoned debate in America. A lie screamed loudly will trump a truth spoken quietly"." Nearer home, qualms about the biased approach of the network have reached the Murdoch family. Earlier this year the PR executive Matthew Freud, who is married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, told the New York Times that he was, ""ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’s horrendous and sustained disregard of journalistic standards"." I think those voices are worth listening to. At a time of potential world dislocation and even world destruction on an unprecedented scale an impartial agenda is surely crucial. Plurality can produce much-needed variety, but also through ferocious competition it can breed beasts as big as any that the state can produce. The only way is to look at the question constantly and carefully, to question impartiality on these news bulletins and see that it is observed. John Milton was right. He was right in the 17th century and he is right today. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Liberty, which relies on unpolluted information, is the underpinning of democracy. Democracy, as your Lordships know very well, is rather rare and it is a fragile state. It depends on and allows for clashing views. It encourages dissent. It glories in opposition, which perpetually slows it down, but always in the end holds it up. At the centre of democracy is a well-informed electorate. At the core of that is the idea of impartiality. We know what that is, especially when it is not there. This may need regulation—a word more often held in contempt nowadays. However, regulation has brought this country some of the finest radio and television we have, which holds its own with that in any other country in the world. I urge all sides of the Committee, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Puttnam and myself, to endorse the broad thrust of these amendments and ensure that the notion of impartiality is embedded in the Bill.