Around lunchtime today I wandered down the two flights of stairs from my “office” to the “canteen” and stuck some eggs to boil on the hob. Normally I’d set the alarm on my mobile, go back to work and come down when they’re done, but since the kitchen is such a distinctly detached part of the flat it felt like a refuge, especially as I had none of my usual entertainment gubbins in there – no music, no books, no comics, no computer. Just a crappy alarm-clock-radio. So I tuned it to Radio 4 and listened to The Archers for the first time in, ooh, 18 months? In fact it was the first time I’d listened to Radio 4 live in ages – there was never any point when I could pick and choose through the listen again thingy. As I sat there, drinking my tea while my eggs boiled and Joe Grundy moaned about something unintelligible, it all felt very civilised.
I also caught the news, and as you’ll know a significant chunk of the BBC was on strike today. What struck me was how balanced the reporting was. Not really surprising given that those making the news were reporting their own situation, but quite different to how industrial disputes are usually covered. Whenever there’s a transport-related strike much is said about potential disruption and the measures being taken to minimize it but very little is said about why the strike has been called. And if it is revealed that it’s all about pay and working conditions nothing is said about the fact that that’s the only thing unions are allowed to strike about (I could be wrong about this – if you know better please leave a comment).
I remember during my time in London seeing signs outside tube stations by the management apologizing but not taking responsibility for the strike, implicitly putting all the blame on the staff for making our journey to work more interesting. It would have been nice to see a notice in the same spirit as this Q&A on the BBC News site. Since London Underground passengers effectively pay the wages of those striking it would be the honorable thing to give them the whole story. I guess that’s the difference between the public service mindset and the private corporate way.
(Of course it could be that the BBC wasn’t actually able to gather any other in-depth news today so they were forced to pad things out with what was going on on their doorstep.)
See also Martin Currybet on why he was on strike.
I think that the reason that the strikers position was so well portrayed was that the strikers where themselves BBC journalists so (a) they know how to put the case and (b) the people making the news programmes are naturally sympathetic to them.