16 January 2018 
Kim Frost, Director of HR
Kim Frost, University Secretary and Director of Human Resources at the University of London comments on how much of the news is now opinion.
To tweet or not to tweet? Or appear on Radio 5 Live? How about a comment in the Guardian or an interview on ITN? Stuff of dreams, or something else?
Towards the end of last year a story briefly flashed across the major news channels and what used to be called the broadsheet newspapers. It was a “landmark case” over contractors’ employment rights (BBC, Guardian, and many others); it could “revolutionise” employment for millions of people (Independent). I don’t wish to comment on the case itself, but if you’d like to read about it and the outcome it has just been published on the Central Arbitration Court’s website here. The CAC declined to hear the case.
But yes, the University of London was indeed at the centre of this case (although as always some media reports were illustrated with pictures of one or other of our blameless colleges). As the phones rang hot with requests for interviews I could only think of the Roman philosopher who commented that, “All you hear is opinion, not fact; all that you see is perspective, not the truth”. We issued a short statement and gave no interviews.
All this has made me reflect on the news stories we are presented with each day on line, in print and by the various broadcasters. When did the news agenda become so driven by opinion, not just on one or two outlets but across the board? Why is it that whenever some news story that I have some personal knowledge of is reported, it is almost always misreported in some significant way? Why can so few journalists seem to grasp the difference, for example, between gender pay and equal pay? Why has Twitter – unchecked, unedited, unverified - become a major news outlet?
So should we have joined in on that day and accepted those invitations for comment and interview? Should I have furiously tweeted and retweeted? Some people would enjoy that and if you are one of them, good for you. I too have had my modest moment in the sun when a few years ago my thirty-second comment on e-cigarettes in the workplace on BBC Breakfast News was widely admired by my wife (although she subsequently admitted she had actually forgotten to tune in and watch it).
Sometimes, and I strongly believe this was one time, the agenda and the thrust of the story is clear and relentless, and on the day you are just going to be a casualty. The best you can do is be brief and factual and not get drawn into the whirlpool. The next day, the story will be gone from the headlines and be replaced by the next big thing, whatever that might be. So my advice to my colleagues when the media starts to circle? Less is more.
The sad thing is, I’ve found myself starting to avoid reading newspapers and sometimes even listening to the news. It’s all opinion. The philosopher was right.
So when the bright lights of the TV studio next beckon, or the radio microphone, or the temptingly pithy quote, just take a moment. Do you want to jump in? Will it help? Really?
