‘Bristol24/7 invites me to be engaged, to be interested, to discover’

Many of you will know and recognise the man I am interviewing today, who is one of Bristol24/7’s supporter members.

Jonathan Dimbleby has mostly likely graced your TV, radio and possibly your bookshelves too, with writing books now his main occupation.

I’m talking to him over Zoom from my kitchen in Easton to find out what he thinks the threats to journalism are and why he is a member of the Bristol24/7 community.

For those who don’t know you, could you introduce yourself and your career?

“My name is Jonathan Dimbleby. I’m a writer and broadcaster. I very much like walking and the countryside and I’m fortunate that although I have to live in a city, Bristol is a good as they get and I’ve been to a lot of cities.

“It’s very difficult to summarise a career when you started so long ago. I’ve been in this business, or trade as I see it, for nearly half a century. You remember particular moments. For me, I’ve done a lot of studio work, a lot of election nights, political interviews and radio programmes weekly for a very long time. But my main achievement in my own mind is to have been able to explore the world. Particularly Africa, where I was able to make some films.

“When you’re a young journalist, you think you’re going to make a huge difference. That you’re going to say I’ve seen this, and it’s happening and I’m telling you and as a result it will change for the better. I’m slightly more realistic now, which is a shame because I think I’m generally someone who is glass half-full. I’ve done a lot of writing as well. I derive huge satisfaction from understanding more about the past. Not because it determines the present, but it does help shape the present and that means it helps shape the future. The more understanding one has about that the more illuminating is my sense of the world around me. Like everyone, I am not obsessed by but absorbed by the huge challenge that this country and humanity faces because of climate change.”

How has journalism changed in the span of your career?

“It has changed enormously. It is less diverse than it was, it is far easier to communicate than it was because of technology. It is far more open to abuse than it was because of that. It is also given an astonishing and positive opportunity for individuals to become what I call rather loosely ‘citizen journalists’. If they do their job well and seriously and with care, those individuals can make a massive contribution. Just look at the evidence you have from front-line situations. Individual situations that illuminate the bigger question. Those are really important. So I’m not at all negative about that set of changes. I am disturbed by the fact that the combination of the technology changes and the need that newspapers have for advertising has made it very difficult for independent publications to flourish. Very challenging indeed, and yet they matter more and more because of the otherwise absence of diversity.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3AnkyKtOhs

What do you think people’s perception of journalism is?

“I think people are very sceptical, but I think a lot of journalists are very much respected. I would say this wouldn’t I, because a lot of my life has been spent in television and radio, but I think BBC journalism is hugely respected. That’s because it does have genuine values by which the journalists are required to live. If they don’t do so, they’re in big trouble. You will nonetheless get a BBC that is under immense attack from particular groups whom the BBC is failing because it doesn’t just deliver their point of view unvarnished. You can’t do anything about that if you are delivering a service that is designed to be accurate and impartial. I don’t believe however that being accurate and impartial means more generally for communications for journalists that you can’t be investigative, that you can’t be challenging, that you can’t campaign. I think campaigning is a very important role that journalism has, and if you believe that campaigning is important, you will regard journalists as absolutely critical in delivering the truth, unveiling falsehood, exposing lies. The problem is that journalism is contaminated with fake news and some people find it very difficult to distinguish fake news from real news.”

You talked a bit about diversity in journalism and how journalism is becoming less diverse. How can we fix that?

“It’s very very difficult. If I could wave a magic wand I would. Journalism is very much a money problem. It costs to produce good journalism, you can’t do it cheaply. You have state funded media, of which the BBC is the obvious example, and you have media that is funded by advertising and that promotes conglomerate ownership. You cut the costs, you get a larger share of what is an increasingly fragmented market. That makes it very difficult indeed to secure space for the smaller independent outlets, online or in print, to be heard. That is really worrying. In a strange way, what we’re talking about – independent newspapers, online for the sake of argument, cannot get state aid. They can get particular funding for particular projects that are clearly defined for what is the public good, but they rely on advertising or on subscription. Both of those are very difficult to achieve in a very crowded and fragmented market. A magic wand solution I suppose is that if you care about it and if you’ve got a few pennies you should think to yourself, ‘can I make sure that I get this independent journalism which I care about and which adds value to my life? Gives me information, entertainment, news that matters to me. You just have to bite that bullet I’m afraid, you can’t sit there and say ‘wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was better funded because then it would be an even better service’, because it won’t be if you just leave it.”

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Read more: Jonathan Dimbleby on books, Bristol and Clifton Literary Festival

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One of the things that we are desperate to do at Bristol24/7 is to hire a dedicated climate reporter, which we think would be a first for our local media. I wondered what you think the is the importance of climate reporting?

“I think it is hugely important and I think it would be fantastic if 24/7 was able to have a climate reporter. If you’re a small team, you can’t cover everything. If you take news and events, it’s such a vast pudding of possibilities, and you have to select the plums that are your plums. There is no more important plum than climate change. One of the problems with coverage of climate change is that it’s always at a national level and it’s either very general and often very repetitious in describing the problem, sometimes it’s extraordinarily illuminating as well and it’s very interesting if you care about it to read about the mega scale politics – cop26 etc. I’ve often thought that the focus is important – if you take generally, people say ‘yes we have to have better insulation’. It’s a no-brainer actually, there has to be better insulation and it’s a classic example of what can be done in a particular person’s life. We have to reduce the carbon from our fires, from our transport. We’re blessed by the fact there is a widespread assumption that climate change matters enormously. We’re not back where we were when we were saying ‘is climate change man-made?’ we know it’s largely man-made or to such an extent that to pretend otherwise would be to bury your head in what would actually be the sand of everyone’s lives. The climate reporter could focus on particular examples of what is and isn’t being done and what might be done better to play the cities part in dealing with that problem. I think a climate change reporter would be a very, very good idea. Bristol’s climate change reporter.”

Why did you become a Bristol24/7 member?

“It’s a refreshing outlook. I get an awful lot coming in, and I get a lot of print coming in that I look at, too often, because I’m supposed to be getting on with my book. Too often I find it’s a complete waste of time. 24/7 is engaging. You feel in an odd way as if it’s yours. I don’t feel this with the other outlets. It is telling me something that often I don’t know about Bristol. I live in a precious, privileged corner of the city. I don’t know large parts of the city. Even though my first job was working in this city in 1971 – that’s how young I am – it is a transformed city since then, in a massive way, on the whole mostly for the better. It’s an illusion that because it’s a multicultural and ethnically diverse city that it is a unified city. I think relations are far better in this city than in many others and I think there’s a general sense of pride in this city that’s felt by lots of people. I look at 24/7 and I think – I’m not being lectured at, I’m being invited to be engaged, to be interested, to discover.”

What would you say to people who are considering becoming a Bristol24/7 member – perhaps a regular reader who hasn’t made the leap to supporting us?

“I would say £5 a month is a modest amount. Not everyone can afford it – but it’s a modest amount that gives a disproportionate degree of pleasure and illumination. The city needs 24/7. It would be a great loss if it suddenly went under. Take the bigger picture, the BBC for example, people say ‘there shouldn’t be a license fee’ but if the BBC went under, it would be a mega national loss. In the case of Bristol, it’s obviously on a totally different scale we’re talking. If 24/7 disappears, some people will say ‘yeah, so?’ but the people who use it and who read it, I think would feel a big sense of loss. The only way that you can be confident that that won’t happen is to put your hand in your pocket.”

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Main photo: Martin Booth

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