Who's in Charge?

Some years ago I attended a lecture given by Ken Loach, the British film director. He talked about his forty years of working in and with the media, focussing on the unwritten understanding that exits between them and the government. He explained that the concept of a free press (which includes all arms of the media) is illusory. It’s one of the lies we are fed to keep us complacent. What actually happens is that the two bodies tacitly agree to dance to the same tune, the media being allowed to criticise and expose only up to a point and no further.

He cited a personal example. He was commissioned by Channel 4 to make a series of social documentaries. In true Ken Loach style, he researched extensively and told as much hard truth as he could manage in the time available. Despite the high production costs, the programmes were never aired. He was told that they went too far; the public isn’t allowed to know that much truth.

During the interval, a colleague and I went outside for some air. He asked me what I thought of the lecture. ‘Interesting and enlightening,’ I said. ‘Oh, come on,’ said my colleague, ‘you don’t really believe all that stuff, do you?’ So there you have it. A man who has worked with the media for four decades, and who is known for his honesty and plain speaking, tells us how it is. Another man, who has no experience of the media whatsoever, refuses to believe it. Well, of course he does. To do so would make him uncomfortable.

A year or so later, the point was demonstrated emphatically in the notorious matter of the BBC interview with Dr David Kelly. The truth was told and Blair should have been impeached. Instead, the ‘guilty’ journalist and the Director General of the BBC were fired. They had overstepped the line. The matter of Dr Kelly’s subsequent suicide is, perhaps, a separate issue. Or is it?

I am coming to see the same principle at work with education. I am increasingly convinced that the primary purpose of making us all literate is to enable us to read the propaganda. And then the educational system feeds us that propaganda. It doesn’t teach kids to have doubts and question vigorously, as I believe it should. It teaches kids to think inside the box, not outside it.

So who is it that can keep the government, the media and the educational system all walking the same line? I remember the look of horror on Peter Mandelson’s face when he was accidentally caught on camera entering a Bilderberg meeting, the existence of which had always been officially denied.

Who is really in charge here, and how does that question impact on the value of general elections?