"57 Channels and nothin' on"

On his 1992 album Human Touch, Bruce Springsteen included a swipe at the new couch potato, TV addicted generation that was growing up in America with the song "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)".

I was reading an article in The Independent a couple of weeks ago about a controversial billboard campaign by the news channel Russia Today (RT). The network was advertising in the UK and US with a poster of President Ahmadinejad and President Obama morphing into one under the words "Who poses the greater nuclear threat?"

I decided to investigate this RT network a little further. I find it mind-boggling that we have so many channels at our disposal on digital TV and still don't know what is at our fingertips. It turns out RT is owned by the Russian state. "Biased! Biased!" I hear you cry. Well, only as much as FOX News is in the US. When i was revising for my A-Level exams (the memory is getting ever more distant) i used to watch FOX while eating my lunch. Why? It was different from BBC News (bored me at the time) and not quite as tacky as SKY News (prior to the poaching of BBC news anchors). I can therefore vouch that FOX was as pro-Republican as RT is pro-Russia.

So can news ever be free from bias? The BBC has an obligation under OFCOM to produce news that is "free from political bias." Respected all over the world, i think it does a pretty good job.

RT's manifesto is to provide "an unbiased portrait of Russia". That's about as believable as Britney Spears claiming her recent album is an accurate portrayal of American life. What is does do is puts Russia's opinion forward to the west in the medium that we all now live with - digital TV. China (CCTV), The Middle East (Al-Jazeera), Europe (EuroNews), France (France 24) and the US (Fox News, CNN) are all represented by a 5-0-something channel in our homes. Russia needs to be there fight it's corner.

I have just finished an article examining the Russian government's tactics with regard to RT. The article discusses the poster campaign and the reasons behind the state owned TV station making it's presence so controversially felt in the West. I hope to post it here soon. An extract runs below.

One broadcaster, Russia Today, (RT –Sky Channel 512) has recently launched an advertising campaign across the UK and US. This has featured a poster of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad morphing into President Obama questioning, “Who poses the greater nuclear threat?” It has been banned from US airports and caused quite a stir wherever it has been displayed. Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT says the station’s intention is to present “an unbiased portrait of Russia”. RT is sponsored by the state owned Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Phillip Hanson, Professor of the Political Economy of Russia at Birmingham University, fails to see what the controversial poster will achieve. “Maliciously linking Ahmedinajad and Obama doesn't fit Russian foreign policy. The Putin team is ambivalent about both of them, but at least seems currently to be cooperating with the US over sanctions on Iran.” RT can however guarantee that the head-turning billboards will get people discussing the channel and will bring the station to more prominence.

So are we a soft touch for allowing this kind of advertising on our streets? Such a poster featuring Prime Minister Putin would never be allowed in Russia. Professor Hanson believes that being a soft touch on issues such as freedom is expression isn’t such a bad thing, “…freedom of speech should be restricted only by a prohibition on incitement to violence.” Perhaps by banning the posters in their nations airports – spaces where sensitivity towards terrorism and patriotism are magnified – the US considers these an incitement to violence? More likely it is their own self-censorship that means they’re thrown in the can.

If Bruce Springsteen was writing his Human Touch album now, 57 Channels (And Nothin' On) might not be quite so true.