When Robert Peston joked he might be about to resign on ITV News at Ten last month (you will search in vain for video evidence), it was a knowing nod to anybody with an interest in the strict conventions of broadcast journalism. The political editor with a penchant for doing things differently was rebelling against the notion of absolute balance, whereby equal weight is afforded to both sides of any argument. Instead, he eschewed etiquette and ventured a considered opinion on the latest claim and counter-claim in the EU referendum debate - assessing the weight of available evidence and drawing his own conclusion. Brave stuff in the world of broadcast journalism.
So far, Peston hasn't started a trend. Yet there is nothing to say this will not become the latest broadcasting rule to be bent, if not broken.
There was a time when a refused request for comment was reported in perfunctory tones - most commonly, "X was unavailable for interview." It was a message designed more to demonstrate that the journalist had done their duty rather than accurately summing up the circumstances surrounding the no-show. After all, the intended interviewee was probably not so much unavailable as simply unpersuaded of the benefit of going on air.
Of course, various wordings could be deployed - "X declined to be interviewed" or "X could not be contacted for comment." Yet there was a hint of deference about all of these constructs. None of them reflected the reality of the labyrinthine efforts which had probably been made to secure an interview. In fact, I know of one old-school broadcast journalist who even balked at the use of the word "refused" in this context - feeling it came far too close to passing comment on a failure to comment.
Whilst neither the empty chair nor the words used to explain it were particularly satisfactory, all this mattered less when interview refusals were more of a rarity than a regularity. In recent years, however, the incidence of refusal certainly seems to have rocketed. How else to explain that broadcast journalists are increasingly commenting themselves on the fact that official comment - from politicians and the public bodies they oversee - is so often elusive?
Pioneering this critique of coyness are those journalists whose work is most blighted by it. Top of the list - Radio 4's flagship investigative strand, File On 4. A bastion of broadcast journalism, the programme probably felt it had to take a different tack as minister after minister, ahem, 'declined' to appear week after week. For stylistic reasons if nothing else, reporters had to search for more inventive ways of saying the same thing - i.e. the press office said no.
It started with a gentle hint of sarcasm in the voices of journalists clearly weary of building a programme so obviously designed for government comment, but which was audibly being stymied in its attempts to obtain it. The situation became worthy of parody and whilst the team of journalists somehow resisted that temptation, regular listeners began to hear 'no comment' itself being given the kind of forensic treatment for which File on 4 is known.
In place of parroted platitudes about unavailability from on high were detailed explanations about the many reasons the programme had sought an interview with officialdom. In the process, officialdom's refusal was exposed as being unreasonable, ridiculous or both. Listeners were, of course, allowed to draw such conclusions for themselves, but the programme increasingly armed them with the information to do so. This reached its zenith last year with a devastating (and, for journalists everywhere, delicious) account of the e-mail exchange between reporter Fran Abrams and the principal of a further education college with whom she had tried to secure an interview - hear it at 11'30 here.
The days of passively reporting a refused interview request may be numbered. Jon Snow has recently taken to task the chief dental officer and several Conservative MPs for refusing to appear on Channel 4 News - and the audience thus glimpsed the idiocy of their obfuscation. Andrew Neil teases those senior politicians who will not appear on his programmes and thereby shield themselves from what they no doubt regard as the most rigorous political interview they could ever endure.
Like Fran Abrams, their tone in doing so can be barbed - but that does not impugn their impartiality. As with every other aspect of their job, they are simply reporting the facts - albeit in more detailed terms than tradition dictates and than the refusers would probably like. That they do so wryly is probably a reflection of the regularity with which they encounter this journalistic roadblock; and, in any case, wryness is not a breach of any broadcasting code.
No reasonable journalist expects politicians and officials to be waiting on the whim of every media outlet. However, the journalism with which they fail to engage is usually the serious, investigative, off-diary kind; difficult for journalists to produce and difficult for officials to answer - but all too easy for them to dodge. It is the kind of journalism to which officialdom pays lip-service in public, but increasingly treats with contempt in practice.
So what is the viewing and listening public to make of it all? It would be easy to conclude that they are not missing out on much. The intended interviewee may have been as rigid and banal as the press office statement sent in their place. Of course, journalists themselves may bear some responsibility - as Newsnight editor Ian Katz and Robert Peston have argued (here and here), the combative style of these set-pieces has raised the stakes for their participants. Maybe, then, it is no wonder that it makes little sense for those in positions of power to submit to them.
Whatever the reasons for it, the empty chair is as bad for journalism as it is for public discourse. So perhaps the answer is for broadcast journalists to carry on creatively filling the void of silence left by those at the top of public life. Reluctance to comment might be overcome if, when right of reply is rejected, it is replaced with ridicule - both from journalists and their audience.
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