Shame on BBC and Sky for cashing in on migrants’ perils – Laura Waddell

Earlier this week both Sky News and BBC News sent boats into the Channel to report on the crossing of migrants, and they were rightfully criticised for doing so.

A migrant in Dover gives a thumbs up after crossing the English Channel. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images

There was little shred of humanity in either broadcast. It was pure stunt news. What is the thought process behind such a ghoulish editorial decision as to send a boat out after the migrants? Someone looked at these anguished human beings, clinging to a dinghy in the middle of the sea, uncertain what their next hours on Earth might look like, and saw only entertainment value. Such numbness to suffering is stomach-churning.

From Sky, reporter Ali Fortescue leaned over the edge of her boat in a crisply ironed shirt while a dozen or so migrants huddled on a dinghy only just big enough for their bodies to fit. The scene did not look like intrepid reporting, where a journalist reports from a live scene, getting close to the action to understand better what is going on. Fortescue could have been on any tourist boat trip, out to look at dolphins, and not have looked amiss.

Simon Jones then reported from a BBC boat. The camera zoomed into a migrant boat as water was being scooped out to ward off sinking. It is difficult to believe Jones’ even, dispassionate voiceover was describing the scene of survival just behind him. “It looks pretty dangerous” he droned, looking back into the camera, while one end of the boat dipped lower into the sea. “Are you okay? Are you alright?” He shouted, pointing the mic. While the boat bobbed, threatening to cast its 20 or so passengers with standing room only into the deep water, there was nothing to see on the horizon. Dover, their intended destination, looked a long way away. “Obviously, the coastguard has been alerted.” By whom?

Both journalists spoke of safety, but did nothing to help, and it was never intended for that to be their role. Sky made more than the BBC of telling the audience they were watching each boat land safely, but of course that’s not what they were actually there for. Would they have been prepared to launch a rescue mission had any craft fallen into danger? The non-committal acknowledgements that what was transpiring before our eyes posed grave risk to the lives onboard cames across as disingenuous, inventing justification for being there. They were careful not to express too much opinion on the highly politicised matter of migration, but told the viewer nothing about what had driven the event beamed live on screen. There was no discussion of the ongoing wars, persecution, or other impetus which sends people fleeing, nor how the pandemic has halted legal bids to enter, with no resettlements in Britain for months. As a result, nothing much is left in the script but a blatant call for the viewer to stare at the unusual sight.

Shouting forth the most inane of questions, answers largely lost to the sea spray, the audience learns little about the journeys being undertaken, such as why these individuals have resorted to what is perceived to be the most dangerous method of entering the UK, a journey of desperation with great precedent of tragedy. These news clips were dehumanising, not sensitive, holding people up to be gawped at like a live exhibit at Seaworld.

Journalists can be prone to closing ranks when their industry is criticised. Some will feel concerned by these high octane broadcast news spectacles, but remain reluctant to criticise others in their profession. A destabilising, rising tide of hostility to legitimate journalism has made many reporters overly resistant to warranted criticism from outsiders, conflating questions about quality of reporting with attempts to undermine the very existence of the press. But obviously, ethics can go awry and mistakes are made. Sometimes editors get the tone wrong in the pursuit of increasing viewing figures. Audience prejudices and the political movements which stoke them are pandered to and legitimised, rather than challenged. Channels like Fox News grew their audience share by choosing to take a reactionary, Trump-friendly tack after the 2016 election.

I can’t help but wonder what the best war correspondents make of such scenes as Tuesday’s hollow voyeurism. Do they have ethical concerns about reporting that saw fit to interrupt a boat on its journey, mid-dash for safety and security? Did the bigger boats amp up the waves around the tightly packed dinghys on their very close approaches?

But what appetite is there for reporting that is more nuanced and less sensational on the subject of migration? A Yougov poll released later that afternoon on Tuesday showed “almost half of Britons (49 per cent) say they have little (22 per cent) to no sympathy (27 per cent) for the migrants who have been crossing the channel from France to England”. This is the audience for such displays.

This, no matter is said about kinship and generosity of spirit in the aftermath of a tragedy, is Britain. This is Britain five years after the sight of three-year-old Alan Kurdi went viral, the red T-shirt-clad toddler who washed up dead on the shore of Bodrum in Turkey, plastered all over British newsstands. Social media was shocked and saddened. This is Britain still in the midst of a pandemic during which we have clapped out our windows once a week for the compassion and care provided by a NHS staffed by many immigrant doctors and nurses who have been made to feel unwelcome by bureaucratic hostility and emboldened racists. This is a Britain which hashtags #bekind every time a public figure is hounded by the media to their death by suicide.

Some are born into a life which requires fleeing for survival. Others watch them bail out water in the middle of the sea, and ask them what they think they’re doing. Now you can watch it all, live, from the comfort of your sofa.