News left in the balance

EMILY Maitlis appointed herself ringleader of the Dominic Cummings lynch-mob with her extraordinary Newsnight monologue. She’s hardly alone among today’s broadcasters in finding reading the news from an autocue insufficiently challenging, and regarding the impartiality that was once TV news’s greatest strength (and distinction from newspapers) as an irksome restriction.

Earlier this year, I highlighted a freedom of expression survey of those working in the arts and culture sector, in which 80 per cent of those taking part said they feared sharing opinions at odds with its suffocating left-wing conformity.

The description by one respondent of “a monolithic politically correct class (mostly of privileged white middle-class people, by the way) who impose their intolerant views across these sectors” applies equally to broadcast journalism these days, and Maitlis epitomises it.

You only have to consider if the BBC would have administered a similarly mild slap on the wrist if Maitlis had chosen to vent her spleen in support of, say, Nigel Farage’s views on illegal migrants crossing the Channel during lockdown, to see how far down the road from anything approaching impartiality TV news has gone.

I DO however have the BBC to thank for the documentary Ella Fitzgerald: Just One Of Those Things. I’ve always loved her voice (Dusty Springfield and Karen Carpenter are the only other 20th century female singers who come close) but knew nothing about her upbringing, which included being sent to reform school. It’s worth

catching on iPlayer just for the reminiscences of her old friend, the dancer Norma Miller, whose contribution must have been made shortly before she died last year aged 99. She remembered Fitzgerald was barracked when she first appeared on stage – until she began to sing. “Can you imagine? We booed Ella Fitzgerald!” Terrific.