Broadcast impartiality is a staged performance of neutrality, not genuine neutrality

Evidence

IMPARTIALITY: Impartiality defines the way broadcasters negotiate situations of conflict from within. Broadcasters are not supposed to express personal opinions on controversial issues: they are committed to a rigorous impartiality between the conflicting parties. Experienced interviewers know precisely the angle at which they must lean downwind for Mr. Heath, upwind for Mr. Wilson, in order to construct an impression of fierce impartiality: the art of political management of the studio situation is one of the current affairs broadcaster’s first professional skills. In practice, of course, all broadcasters have views. The working compromise is to insist that the broadcaster must be the last person, if at all, to express a view. But as all good producers know, there is more than one way of cutting a program. Producers have become extremely skilled at producing “balanced” studio teams—the infinite calculations as to how many Bernadette Devlins make an Ian Paisley is one of those editorial acts which all producers are skilled at intuiting. Yet the practice of impartiality has several inescapable consequences. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 865

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to media-studies critiques of journalistic ‘balance’ fallacy; also to the reader’s deep-listening/soundscape material on how framing is a craft choice.
• DEFINE: Impartiality here is defined as a professional craft of managing studio conflict, not a principled neutrality.