It's a game we've all played at one time or another - fantasy TV news running order. Just me? I doubt it. There aren't many households where someone hasn't openly berated the faceless executive who decided this story or that should lead the bulletin - or even have a place in it at all. Not to mention questioning why that piece you half-heard on the radio during the day - and of which you would quite like the full story - has been afforded only the briefest of mentions on the evening news.
Well it seems that after a hard day's work, Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham arrived home on Sunday evening and ended up playing a spin-off version of this innocent family favourite - fantasy TV news running order: deluxe. This version proceeds in exactly the same way as the original, with one notable exception. While the mild opprobrium inherent in the game usually limits itself to some channel hopping or a tossed remote control, the deluxe version takes things to the next level - a letter of complaint.
Or, to be precise, in this particular instance, a letter of concern. For Mr. Burnham has stopped short of making a formal complaint about what he described as the BBC's "cursory" coverage of a protest march condemning health service cuts and the backdoor privatisation of the NHS.
The lead story on both of BBC1's main news bulletins on Sunday was the opening day of the Tory party conference in Manchester and the bringing forward of the government's help-to-buy scheme. An estimated 50,000 people gathered for the anti-cuts rally just outside the venue. In wrapping up the day's events, the BBC linked all three aspects of this political story in one package at the top of the programme.
This was all perfectly sensible and editorially justifiable. Andy Burnham's complaint, though, was that the presentation of the piece relegated the aspect with which he was most concerned to a side issue. The report did contain some general shots of the protestors and the correspondent gave a brief overview of the reason for the march and the numbers involved. There was, however, no contribution from any of the individuals in attendance who might have put their point more forcefully.
If this hadn't been a short Sunday evening bulletin, there is every likelihood that the protest would have been picked up in a related, second package in the running order. As it happens, there was indeed such a follow-up package - unfortunately for Burnham and the protestors, it was an explanatory piece about help-to-buy, not NHS cuts. And given the time constraints, there was no prospect of a third report on the same overarching political story.
So does the Shadow Health Secretary have a point? Let's try to apply some oft-maligned BBC balance to the issue. On the one hand, it was perhaps surprising that a march of that magnitude didn't even merit a vox-pop with those involved. Such a contribution might not have significantly furthered the story, but potentially could have been slightly more illuminating for the passive viewer.
On the other, could any brief clip of a protestor's comments really have added much to public understanding of the issue? There surely comes a point in stories which have a thread lasting several years (like this one) when some cumulative knowledge has to be assumed. This is particularly true in daily news programmes when time is tight. Occasionally, the most basic definition of news - reporting that which is new - has to be applied. In this instance, the march was the story; the reasons for it had been heard many times before and there wasn't time to repeat them, preferable though that might have been.
Perhaps an argument could be advanced that the specific issue of health service cutbacks has come second in broadcast coverage to similar changes in the benefits system. As discussed here, that might have more to do with the ease of crafting effective human interest reports out of benefit stories as opposed to the more amorphous structural issues often associated with the NHS.
Ultimately, though, it is difficult to argue that broadcast reporting of health service challenges and reforms has been anything other than comprehensive. Those who really want the finer details might have to look further than daily TV news programmes and consult more specialist, long-form output - or even just their regional counterparts which are past masters at incisively highlighting wider issues with case studies close to home. Yet whilst acknowledging that half-hour bulletins can never be a televised version of Private Eye (now there's an idea), it seems to me that broadcast news has got the balance just about right.
Sometimes the news agenda isn't exactly how we might fashion it if we were the ones in sole charge. Stories are always jostling for position and agreement about what makes the cut and what doesn't is never universal - least of all amongst reporters themselves. Politicians, meanwhile, already have far greater influence over what hits the headlines than most other groups in society, so can they really complain when the news agenda doesn't match their own?
While Andy Burnham's point about this particular example of reportage is a legitimate one and he is right to raise it with the BBC Trust if he feels strongly enough, I am glad that he has resisted the temptation to make a formal complaint. It would have cast an unnecessary shadow over the insightful work done by newsrooms across the industry to bring to life these complex subjects for the widest possible audience - in other words, broadcast news at its best.
