TV talk shows
Editorial
For at least three years talk shows on television have been provoking much controversy and criticism. The thrust of the criticism has been that the hosts show no understanding of their responsibilities, allow persons to express the most uninhibited, irrational, racist and even seditious views and indeed in some cases themselves come to the shows with a pronounced attitude and bias that leads them to add to rather than diminish any extremist positions that callers may express. The programmes in some cases become a veritable concoction of confusion and slander. The problem is a profound one, involving as it does the fundamental issue of free speech. What we are experiencing with these shows is free speech with no monitoring or editorial function being exercised. The caller can say whatever he has on his mind, however scurrilous, untrue or inflammatory and the host, either through apathy, a lack of sophistication, an inability to grasp that what is being said is untrue, irrelevant or pernicious, a lack of appreciation of his role or, in the worst case scenario, having a private agenda to create mischief allows him to continue uninterrupted with no effort to counter his views, cut him off or raise the level of the discussion. The host, in other words, is singularly ill equipped to handle the programme professionally or competently and should not be entrusted with such a demanding job. Of course some remedies are available. If someone is libelled they can sue the host and the station (and the caller if they know who he is and he utters the libel). But this is an expensive remedy which the ordinary person will not readily resort to. And if the caller or the host makes a seditious statement or a statement calculated to provoke a breach of the peace they can be charged though quite properly a State would normally be most reluctant to undertake such a strong response. Accordingly, much of this untrammelled speech is tolerated even though it does a lot of damage. In any society, free speech is not an unmixed blessing. There is a price to be paid for it as much of it is, at the best of times, inaccurate, misleading and tendentious. But that price is willingly paid in a democracy because of the far greater good of allowing people free expression, even though their views may be mistaken or biased. Freedom of expression is an absolutely crucial ingredient in an open and democratic society and cannot lightly be restricted or interfered with. The difficult question is when does it go over the top, so to speak, and become racist and confrontational and such as to provoke disorder. It is not always easy to draw the line. In the Memorandum of Understanding which forms the basis on which the donors have agreed to support the democratic process it is provided that the Elections Commission will establish a mechanism to monitor the coverage of the election by the media with a view to combatting racial incitement and hate speech in the media. The Commission will identify and publicly denounce any coverage which contains such incitement or speech and will refer it to the Director of Public Prosecutions for urgent action. Everyone will agree that it is of great importance not to aggravate the tensions inevitably stirred up in an election campaign. That can easily lead to confrontation and violence. But it is necessary to make a clear distinction between legitimate debate on current topics, even if those topics are sensitive, and speech that is merely provocative or racist. The Commission must ensure that the persons it deputes to perform this monitoring function have the experience to exercise a careful and measured judgment as to where legitimate debate ends and hate speech begins. Apart from anything else, trying to punish free speech is prima facie unconstitutional under Article l46 unless the law relied on is reasonably required in the interests of public safety or public order. It would also be extremely useful if an experienced media practitioner like Mr Hugh Cholmondeley could be persuaded to conduct a one day seminar for the TV talk show hosts giving them a clear idea of how a programme should be conducted professionally and introducing mechanisms that are available such as 30 second delays in the voice broadcast to allow the blocking of offensive material. It is time that some attempt be made to deal structurally with this development which inevitably casts a bad light by reflection on all the media and destroys professional standards of journalism.
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