C4 Despatches: Terrible reporting

[anti-pacer]

I watched tonight's programme called "Is Britain Full" expecting a topical insight into immigration. Instead it was about the North/South divide and the brain drain to London. They showed derelict parts of Liverpool that I am led to believe are being demolished for a regeneration, claiming that Liverpool is losing population, and compared this to London's Docklands where population is booming.

The programme also featured a graduate recruitment fair in Liverpool where allegedly most of the jobs advertised were in London and the South East. In addition to this, the difference in transport funding was shown, comparing the North West to London, ignoring the fact that transport funding per head in the North West is the highest in England after London, and further ignoring the fact that London needs more spending due to its higher population and greater reliance on public transport.

It just showed the ignorance displayed by our media, not comparing like for like and distorting the reasons behind things. It was terrible reporting in my view and not particularly accurate either.

Did you watch this programme, and if so what were your views?

 

[jon0844]

Dispatches has always been pretty shoddy. Poorly researched and seemingly edited to find a rather easy, lazy, conclusion that probably adheres to expectations and assumptions.

Even Panorama now seems dumbed down, possibly because now you can expose something and change opinion in 140 characters on Twitter, so why bother to spend lots of money on a TV programme?

 

[DarloRich]

Dispatches has always been pretty shoddy. Poorly researched and seemingly edited to find a rather easy, lazy, conclusion that probably adheres to expectations and assumptions.

Even Panorama now seems dumbed down, possibly because now you can expose something and change opinion in 140 characters on Twitter, so why bother to spend lots of money on a TV programme?

Yes - lots of those investigative journalist type programmes seem to have been dumbed down. It is symptomatic of the vacuous times in which we live where depth and breadth of knowledge in a subject are rejected in search of cheap, almost instant, sensationalism.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I'll preface this first by saying I have not watched the programme and I generally agree that the reporting on these type of programmes is usually awful.

However, the whole issue of internal migration from other places in the UK to London and the South East IS an important part of the whole immigration debate, especially if you are asking such a loaded question as "Is Britain full?". Of course, it is just a part of the debate though, and one of the problems with programmes like this is that their half hour slot is never really enough to actually do any of the topics justice.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I've not watched the programme.

But the underlying idea that huge migration to London is a bad thing is right. It's not good for London, driving the property hyper-inflation, and its not good for the regions.

As for public transport spending, one would expect it to be broadly the same per head regardless of where you are. London would get more because they have more people. Travel to Leeds or Tyneside and tell me that we don't need so much spending: Newcastle and Leeds are permanently gridlocked these days, but there isn't any investment in public transport. Look at the state of Metro, for instance.

But internal migration has nothing to do with national immigration. London might be "full'; Britain certainly isn't.

 

[jon0844]

And it isn't just people from Europe flocking to live, work and socialise in London. People come from all over the UK, themselves helping cause the problems - but when we stopped making things and became a service/banking industry you have to go where the jobs are.

 

[PeterC]

And it isn't just people from Europe flocking to live, work and socialise in London. People come from all over the UK, themselves helping cause the problems - but when we stopped making things and became a service/banking industry you have to go where the jobs are.

The population drift then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as startups have to go where the skills are to find staff.

A few decades ago I remember a businessman complaining about the "lazy" unemployed. He had moved his rag trade business out of the East End to cheaper provincial premises and, strangely enough, his local job centre wasn't exactly flush with people with experienced machinists and overlockers. (I have no idea what an overlocker does but it was a skill that was always in demand before clothing manufacture moved to the far east)

 

[dcsprior]

I'd seen this programme in the guide, but given it a miss as I'd assumed it'd be the kind that'd include a lot of sentences beginning "I'm not a racist, but..." and then going on to prove themselves wrong.

With it being focused on internal migration however, I'm tempted watch it on the C4 equivalent of iPlayer, but put off by the comments on the standard of reporting, so I may not, hmmm...

 

[trainophile]

I saw it, and thought the sensationalist title was just to get people to watch an almost totally unrelated broadcast. I spent the whole half hour waiting for them to get to the point, which never happened.

 

[yorkie]

.... Instead it was about the North/South divide and the brain drain to London....

I am unsure what the solution is, but there is a 'brain drain' to many desirable places, not just London, and it's not just a North/South thing. You see this in places like York, where many people want to move here and it costs a lot more to buy a property here than in nearby towns such as Castleford, Pontefract, Normanton etc.

On the other hand, although the cost of property is high here, I can make savings by not having to own a car, and I don't have any regrets about that.

 

[43021HST]

Native south easterner here, I agree that the south being the centre of most of Britain's jobs is incredibly harmful.
It encourages, inflation, congestion and overcrowding, my hometown of Reading is changing out of recognition, many of the transport connections are bulging at seams, especially the road network. Rents are sky high and every spare bit of land is being redeveloped. The place is turning into an overcrowded claustrophobic mess.

What we need is some sort of regional policy that actively encourages, the growth industries of IT, finance and electronics to disperse more evenly around the country. It's amazing how the conservatives justify their rhetoric about full employment when all the jobs are focused on the southeast. They seem to make little, to no effort distrubute some of that wealth to the north. You may get some half-a***d scheme, but nothing really gets done.