By Richard McKeever
Coincidentally, while we have been debating representation of poverty in the media on the blog this week, staff from a TV production company turned up unannounced at our building in Canning Town yesterday seeking “poor people” for a new series of a reality TV programme. Whilst people are waiting to see advisers about their debts and benefits, or picking up youngsters from after-school clubs, researchers handed round flyers asking if people were “struggling to make ends meet” – and inviting them to participate in a reality TV show. It’s not the first time we have been approached to put people up for this type of “Poverty Game Show”.
It has been discussed elsewhere that TV programmes which contrast lives of those possessing wealth and power with communities who have little of either may not be to everyone’s taste. However these shows represent one of the few visible examples on TV of the significant poverty that affects many of the UK population. Whilst we are keen to see the issues seriously discussed in the media, packaging complex lives of the communities we work with into half hour “life-swap infotainment” isn’t the way to do it.
A programme purporting to conduct a serious analysis of an “issue” by introducing representatives from either side – will frequently put people into a situation where conflict is likely to surface, or is encouraged. Conflict provides the driving narrative of many entertaining “character-led documentaries”. For example an article in today’s Sun looks at how a group of MP’s fared when they undertook to leave their comfortable homes and spend some time living in social housing in different parts of the UK. The series “Tower Block Of Commons” airs next week on Channel 4. This could have been a useful exercise – we have often argued for policymakers to see how life is lived on the frontline where abstract policies become service delivery. In the TV project reported in the Sun politicians might have reached an understanding about how housing, employment and education, policies interact and play out at the grass roots in communities with very different life-chances than their own. However all the potential beneficial dialogue is lost beneath a “clash of cultures” representation which generates a little heat but sheds no light.
Life changing exposure can be devastating to participants unused to public profile. People are given their “15 minutes of fame” in a voracious TV schedule which swiftly moves on “after the break” to cover an entirely new topic leaving the unsupported “Reality TV Star” as yesterday’s news. Closer examination of the offers to participate reveals that there is not even a reward for people participating other than “being on the telly”. All the production team get paid and the TV channel generates advertising revenue from the broadcast, yet the “star of the show” gets nothing. I feel sure we will continue to get requests for participants (maybe media people don’t know any poor people themselves) but we will continue to argue for reasoned, serious analysis of the complex issues.
[...] to find out. Others blamed it not on the journalists themselves but the media as a whole, where a desire to shock and sensationalise can override all other considerations, as in the case of the Tower [...]