Joanna: How much do you think the reader or viewer can rely on the information they are given by the media?
I think that depends what media you’re talking about. I think on the whole in Britain you can largely trust the broadcast media. The broadcast media is striving to tell you the truth, that much I know.
Print media is harder because some of it has a particular political bias, some of it strives to be independent, and uh, some of it pretends to be independent but actually has bias.
So I think it’s quite hard; you have to pick your sources very careful, and I think the nest thing to do when it comes to trying to work out what is going on in the world is to read a variety of things, and listen to a variety of things, and then take your own judgement.
Georgina: As a former news reporter for Newsround, how influential would you say a young person’s voice is in the media?
I think we certainly don’t talk to children enough about stories that…where we should. I think there was a good example today where Misbah Rana or Molly Campbell, the 12-year old girl who’s in Pakistan, has been ordered back to Britain. Lots of interviews on the television today. I didn’t see any interviews with children.
When I came into work today I said "I don’t want to talk to adults I want to talk to children about this". Is a twelve-year old in a position to decide where she should live? That’s what I wanted to talk to. We were unable to get a child to talk to at 12 o’clock after a couple of hours of trying.
So I don’t think enough, is the answer. You know, I think we should talk to children about education, the law, all those kinds of things more.
I’m not honestly certain whether we should be striving to get the voices of children onto the mainstream news on subjects that are not specifically about children, is my honest view. You know, when it comes to the Iraq War or all that kind of stuff, I think sometimes it’s quite nice to take a snapshot and say 'today we want to find out what children think'. And maybe we don’t do that enough.
But I don’t think it’s realistic to think that when we go and interview people about adult subjects or just mainstream subjects that we should also shove in children into the mix, is my honest view.
Joanna: How much power do you think the media has?
Oh God that’s a big question. I don’t know – power over what? I don’t think the media can determine the results of elections; I don’t think the media can decide whether you go to war.
I think the media reflects, and I think the media questions and challenges, and I think the media is powerful to highlight things and can cause. The media has power to cause panic in governments certainly, and things can change as a result of what the media does, but ultimately I think people and governments are more powerful than the media.
Joanna: What could the media change to improve the way the media uses its power?
I can only talk about broadcast media really. I think the broadcast media needs to find a way to talk about the big challenges in our lives and the big problems in our lives in a way that isn’t constantly negative about all the suggestions about ways in which to solve them.
It needs to find more of a conversational tone sometimes between people and politicians and the media. That’s not to say we shouldn’t challenge and we shouldn’t give politicians a hard time when they make a mess of things, but I think we do need to get politicians to speak to us more openly and more honestly without fear of being savaged.
Chinwe: How much power do you think the media has in shaping the decisions and views of young people?
I think young people are just like everybody else in that respect. I don’t think young people are different in that young people get their information from a variety of media and so of course they’re influenced by what the media is saying.
I think children read things, and they hear things, and they draw a conclusion. I don’t think children ever, well, obviously some do, but I don’t think most children read something, or hear it, and just naturally then repeat it as if it was the gospel truth. I think they think about it, they analyse it, and then they work out what they think. Just like everybody else.
Georgina: Having been involved in different kinds of media, like radio and writing for a newspaper, would you say you’ve noticed the differences in the amount of power you’ve had over what you’re writing or what you’re presenting to people?
No, because I don’t think you are ever as a journalist thinking about power, and the power you wield. You shouldn’t be thinking about the power you wield. Because you don’t. If you want to wield power you should go into politics.
But as a journalist it’s your job to highlight, to expose, to challenge, and of course that is a power and you think about that and you really hope, when you are trying to point something out, that people are listening, and that people are watching, and that people get it.
I mean, I don’t honestly think I can say whether I’ve ever felt I had more power with one medium than another. Because it entirely depends on the story. If you’ve got a cracking story, then you’re gonna make people watch, and you’ll have influence. If you’re just doing the same thing as everybody else that day, then why should you make an impact?
Joanna: Why do you think politicians sticks to a script? Do you think the media has something to hide?
I think a lot of politicians stick to a script when they do interviews because they are afraid of what will happen if they stray. They’re afraid that if they reveal that they don’t agree with everything that the government is doing, or they have concerns or they have the same worries as the rest of us, that that will be portrayed as a great spilt, or a great division, or that they have been disloyal to their party or to their leader, and that they’ll have screwed up the policy.
And so I think there’s a lot of fear on the part of a lot of politicians, particularly junior politicians who are on their way up the greasy pole and they don’t want to make a mistake, they don’t want to put a foot wrong, and they just want to, they don’t want to find themselves on the next morning’s front pages having done something, you know, out of step with the rest of the party.
Georgina: Having been around the world and seen the news first-hand, do you think it’s fair to say that the news presented to us can at times be biased?
At the end of the day the news is brought to you in whatever medium by human beings. And human beings are susceptible to being influenced and feeling empathy for people and forming opinions, and it’s very hard to hide them all the time.
So yes of course there will be bias in the news, even though the news has a responsibility to be unbiased. But, what you have to do as a journalist is put aside your personal reaction to a story however much you can, and try and do a job. Which is to give us an overview, to give us both sides; to give us ten sides, because some stories don’t just have two sides they have ten.
And that’s our job as journalists, to not give into the temptation of being self-indulgent, and just telling the world what we think. It doesn’t matter what we think as individuals; we’re no more important than anybody else just 'cause we’ve got the television camera. Our view is no more valid.
But, you know, we have to try hard to be fair. But of course people do have individual reactions to things and that will be reflected in what they’re saying.
Joanna: So do you ever get tempted to say your own opinion - though it could cause confrontation – in interviews or when you’re reading the news out?
Well it’s not really a problem because the kinds of interviews that we do are quite confrontational a lot of the time anyway, so we can put a case. So what I think is neither here nor there, really, but I can put a load of assertions to a politician as if they are the things I think, and sometimes they will be the things I think and sometimes they won’t be, and the viewer and the politician doesn’t know.
So it’s not a problem for me because I have the luxury of working on a programme where I’m able to interview people and I’m able to interview them in quite a rigorous way. But I think it can be hard for others.
About this article
Krishnan Guru-Murthy was interviewed by Joanna Eluka, Georgina South, Chinwe Izamoje and Samir Pasha.
