The adversarial model of political reporting

Allison Pearson of the Daily Telegraph’s response to the news that the police had been called to the flat of Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds is a textbook example of how modern political actors respond to scandal. Don’t say anything specific about the event or issue itself, deflect to a discussion about the motivations of those who are reporting it. With any luck, they will take the bait, and insist on their own purity. The discussion then becomes about those motives: in this case whether or not people talking about the incident at Carrie Symmond’s flat are ‘remoaners’ just trying to find dirt on the likely next Prime Minister. Many probably are. But that doesn’t make the point any less valid.

This example however illustrates something wider: a systemic weakness in the adversarial model of political reporting. According to the adversarial model, on politically charged topics, broadcasters will sometimes refrain from presenting ‘the facts’ of an issue, or what they believe to be the correct interpretation of them. Instead, they will invite representatives of the major viewpoints (typically this is simplified to two, in a binary ‘for’ and ‘against’ fashion) to make their case and debate one another. They are the advocates, the viewer is the jury, and the TV anchor will play the limited role of moderator.

There are many obvious problems with this model. Is the viewer able to act as the jury? How do they evaluate the claims made?  There is a huge literature on how these debates can be gamed, the bad consequences of the most effective tactics and their potential for radicalising the viewership. But let’s say for a moment that we thought the adversarial model was a good idea. For it to work, it requires the assumption that politically motivated actors can nonetheless present valid arguments and information. These debates do not have paid barristers, there is no ‘legal aid’ equivalent for BBC Question Time, so of course, typically those involved will have some political motivation. That’s fair enough.  We can’t expect Conservative or Labour MPs to self criticise, so naturally those we would expect criticism and scandals to be dug up by those representing the other side.

The problem is, this kind of motivation is typically used a way of filtering out information from biased sources. This is also, all other things being equal, fair enough. But, put together, this means that participants can simply dismiss points made out of hand by the other side, no matter how valid, simply on the grounds that they are motivated. Perhaps this was not always so. In a less polarised environment, a Labour supporter might conceive of getting valid information by someone trying to represent the Conservatives, or a leaver from a remainer and vice versa. But not today. This means that the structural presupposition behind the adversarial model, that valid information can come from a motivated source, and that the audience accept this, no longer holds. 

One way to try and get around this is to mix in ‘experts’ on non partisan commentators into these debates. But the problem is, these people, by virtue of taking part in a debate, can also be portrayed as biased, as discussed here. And too often, this kind of panelist is pressured into modifying their views so they can be slotted into a binary category. 

This is just one of a long list of problems with the adversarial model of presenting information. But there are merits to it too. But if any argument can be dismissed merely by insinuating bias, political debates lose any value they may have.