Outside of this particular issue, what is the value of airing both sides of a story? This quest for impartiality seems to be central to much journalism these days, albeit often very insincere. There are inherent problems with reporting “both sides”, especially when one side is wrong. There are circumstances when one side is wrong, it’s not always about two equally valid opinions being voiced.
Should the BNP be given more airtime to give voice to their opinions and policies? Is theirs an equal and valid opinion? No, it isn’t. However they try to market themselves the fact remains that much of their policy and beliefs are based on bigotry and racism. Their clumsy pleas for immigration control and an England for the English are not based on a sincere belief in the efficacy of those policies, but in the mistaken belief that one race or type of people has more of a right to this land than others. They are wrong. I’m not trying to make a moral point, I’m not trying to say that ethically the BNP are wrong, I’m saying that in every sense they are factually incorrect in their assumptions about the world around them. Everyone in England is an immigrant at some point or other. As a person with a fair bit of Welsh ancestry, according to the BNP’s logic I might well be within my rights to ask all the English to please get the hell off my island, as there’s probably a fairly good chance that the Welsh were here first. It’s ridiculous; their policies are based on nothing but an arbitrary unease about people who are different, a fundamental prejudice, on racism. What is more, they are demonstrably wrong. In more subtle areas of politics, for example those arguments between government intervention and free market self-regulation, it’s hard to predict, hard to demonstrate what works best and what doesn’t, it is often a case of perspective, and both sides can be legitimately argued for. The fact that the wealth and prosperity of Britain could not exist without our immigrant population or our historic plundering of other nations is pretty obvious. The fact that humanity as a whole is an immigrant population is a matter of archaeological record. The fact that the land we occupy remains long after we are dust, the fact that borders are arbitrary and ephemeral: all these things are indisputable. If you argue for a particular policy, or your perspective is governed by a denial of these things, then you are wrong. You’re not morally wrong, you’re not an opposing opinion that deserves an airing, you’re just wrong.
Why do we hold up arguments such as these as valid ones that need to be heard? I know that knowledge and proof are not absolute things in this world; that time and time again the consensus is proved wrong in the light of new discoveries, but racism is the consensus that has been proved wrong, not the other way round. It was the consensus before humanity learned what was wrong with it. Now that we understand what is wrong with it, now that we recognise the fundamental errors of assumption, we should be able to move on. This is not a new idea that contradicts our current understanding. It is an old idea that has been contradicted by our current understanding.
Racism isn’t an alternative opinion that needs to be heard, nor is sexism, nor is homophobia. Prejudice is what it is. It is borne from ignorance, and can be defeated by learning and understanding. It can be shown to be wrong. Not morally wrong, not ethically wrong, but demonstrably wrong – based in error.
We don’t need to hear both sides of the story from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; we know that both sides will only see the wrong done them. We can see what they are doing to each other and know that neither side is in the right, that neither perspective is more legitimate than the other. We can look at what is happening and make our own judgements, we already know the judgements of the sides involved, and presenting them again does not give us a greater insight.
Human-caused climate change is a scientific theory, as such the only perspective we need on it is a scientific one, and the overwhelming scientific evidence is that it is happening. We certainly don’t need to hear the perspective of individuals who do not study the subject at a scientific level but who deny the findings of those who do, their opinion is worthless.
Balanced reporting and journalism cannot be about just presenting both sides of the story, because quite frequently one side of the story is nonsense. It’s not often that one can safely refer to the work of a soft-permed, tight-trousered, soft-rock group, but Extreme’s third album was called “Three Sides to Every Story”. The three sides were: yours, mine and the truth. Simply presenting your side of the story and my side of the story will not necessarily provide us with the truth of a story, and providing another side to the story is a waste of everyone’s time when we know that side to be wrong.
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