Day 6 - Silly Questions

It must be very hard work earning a living at being an expert, particularly if one’s main line of business is providing “expert” opinion to the media.  When the producer of the radio phone-in is casting round for someone to introduce a current topic, he or she presumably, with one eye on attracting listeners, does not go with the sort of expert who might offer a balanced assessment but no opinion.  Far from it – popular programmes, to remain popular, must stimulate their followers with black and white opinions.  “Experts,” seeking employment, deal in black and white.  Nuanced or grey assessments, because they are difficult and do not provide the instant gratification of an answer, are glossed over. And so the cycle continues – bald statement followed by flat denial then online abuse.  We might have expected that these exchanges of extreme opinion would be confined to the more polemic elements of the press but we are now seeing a loss of reason even by the major media outlets, notably the BBC and Sky.

I doubt if there could be a more controversial topic than whether it could ever be morally justified to drop a nuclear bomb on somebody else?  At Staff College, in 1979, I was privileged to listen to a lecture on, amongst other things, the morality of war by none other than Leonard Cheshire VC.  Questions were challenging and provocative.  The answers, delivered with softly spoken assurance, offered little in black and white but were spellbinding in their clarity of what comprised the grey.

If Leonard Cheshire had been interviewed today would the BBC or Sky have felt it their duty to challenge the conclusions of his personal experience by lining up some controversial “experts” to provide a denial. Or would they, instead, do their homework and, untheatrically, ask questions that clarified  and expanded the debate.

Such was the lust for blood following yesterday’s crisis briefing from No 10, that the odious Sam Coates, seeing his chance to be noticed whilst Lippy Lillybet was absent, laid into the Prime Minister demanding to know of Mr Johnson whether, in the present crisis, “the buck stopped” with the Prime Minister?  Lots of Sky viewers would have very important and immediate concerns but none have the privileged opportunity to ask a question at the No 10 Press Conference.  Is that the best Sky News can do for its viewers?