Danmarks Radio: a threat to democracy
(originally appeared in Politiken)
As the insidious creep of artificial information renders any notion of reality or objective truth as elusive as a parking space in Østerbro on a Saturday afternoon, you would think that the so-called ‘legacy’ media might be enjoying a renaissance. Instead, their audiences are deserting them as fast as voters from Nye Borgerlige.
The good news: Danmarks Radio, remains the most trusted source of information. As with the BBC in my homeland, the UK, the institutions which have been there since broadcasting began, the ones who told us that Kennedy had been shot, that the European Common Market would change our lives, the Berlin Wall had fallen, that showed us the Twin Towers collapsing and alerted us that COVID was killing Chinese people, these are the institutions with decades of familiarity, trust and goodwill among the populace.
So, in theory, they should be the institutions people turn to in times of growing online fakery, misinformation and divisive partisanship. But, though the trust in our state broadcaster is still there, our attention has been monetised and dominated by the streaming channels, by social media and by podcasts, none of whom are able to offer anything like the authority, impartiality or rigorous editorial quality that a public sector broadcaster ought to.
This is a threat to our education, social cohesion and democracy. You think I’m exaggerating? How many times have you questioned the source of some or other extraordinary fact, opinion or insight with which your children have furnished you, only for the answer to come: ‘I saw it on Youtube?’ Our schools are trying to teach our kids to be source-critical, but for that to work they need to have a variety of sources for their information from which to choose. Yes, they do still have DR, but they aren’t watching it or listening to it. And neither am I. And neither are you. Why not? Because much of DR’s output is repetitive, dull, and lazy - and that is an existential problem for the aforementioned holding-society-together/democracy-related stuff.
This is just my opinion of course. You may still be a ‘flow’ person. You may sit down every evening and watch DR1 and DR2 until you go to bed. You may listen to P1 or - if you are suffering from a head injury - to P3, from the moment you wake up.
I am still drawn to flow TV, not only because I grew up in the last millennia, but because I can remember when DR2 was cool and the at times great DRK was still broadcasting. Even now, if I am at home in the evening, sheer muscle memory will see me checking to see if there is anything - anything at all - that catches my interest on DR. There almost never is. Actually, delete ‘almost’.
The dispiriting ennui starts with the same 20 or so faces appearing on rotation as guests on Aftenshowet. These days, for some bizarre editorial reason, the guests are also now invited to give their opinion on the news topic of the day, regardless of whether they have any special knowledge or experience of it: one evening, we were treated to Christoffer’s view on the Gaza crisis.
The rest of the schedule is dominated by people guessing the value of houses, or people guessing who lives in some other houses, or other people guessing the value of things they’ve bought in a loppe market. DR2, meanwhile, is a binary choice between documentaries about the Nazis or the most boring programme in the history of programmes, Deadline.
No wonder we are all switching to ‘Slow Horses’ or ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ or ‘One Day’ - and all the other light yet smart, high quality yet unchallenging, escapist middle-brow entertainment offered by the streamers.
Why isn’t DR making those kinds of shows? Where are the DR comedies? Why doesn’t Aftenshow liven up its stale format and get out into the country and make short films about what’s going on? Why doesn’t Deadline too, come to that? Where are the DR dramas that go beyond cosy history, or crime? In recent years, British TV drama has been dominated by searing recreations of recent events - dramatising Boris Johnson’s time in office, the post office scandal or the COVID response, for instance. The latest is Michael Sheen’s ‘The Way’, which looks at the decline of a Welsh steel town. Hard-hitting, mass audience fare which makes headlines, gets the population talking about current affairs, and often has had a direct influence on policy. Why isn’t DR making those kinds of shows - about mudslides in Randers, say, or how the farmers have polluted the water, or The Barbara Berthelsen Story?
The story is similar when it comes to the radio. I try - I really do - to listen to P1 in the morning but whenever I tune in, they always seem to be talking about endangered newts in Jutland, or having an eternally hypothetical discussion with someone from SF about their demands for nurses’ pay (demands which remind me of my Christmas wish list, which each year starts ‘i) A Maserati’). Don’t misunderstand me: I am interested in newts and nurses, but need we spend (what feels like) 20 minutes on them? Two minutes should be enough. So I usually switch to a podcast instead: the problem with that is that I gravitate to the ones which reflect my own political views: I have become ‘silo-ed’, rattling around in an echo-chamber of my own curating. I never get to hear the other side of the story, see things from the other end of the political spectrum, which is what you should get from a public broadcaster.
I realise all of this costs money. I realise that P1 talks to a newt expert for half an hour because she is free, and to the SF spokesperson… I don’t know, as an act of charity? I realise DR makes endless programmes in which people guess the price of things, because such programmes cost a few thousand kroner an hour to make. But where is the creativity? Where is the risk-taking? Where is the challenge to the streamers and the social media, the tantalising hook to grab an audience so that you can also feed them the basic facts they will need to make an informed decision at the ballot box, have some idea of what’s going on in the world, or shut up and take their vaccines when they are told to?
Last year, I heard the boss of DR give a talk. She was impressive; a professional and capable technocrat, but not once over the course of an hour did she mention the people who make programmes, the writers or directors or performers. Instead she mostly talked about where the DR logo appeared on the screens of various devices. That kind of thing.
I am sure that is important, but it’s not as important as making great topical drama, or original comedy, or news programmes that people want to listen to.
So here is my suggestion: Sell DR Byen (I’m thinking mixed-use, air bnb/paddle tennis centre), move back to the old DR HQ (or, I don’t know, somewhere nice and cheap on Fyn), invest the money in talent and creativity, and make programmes - lots of them, not just one decent Sunday night series a year - that bring back the audience to their most trusted news source, and unify the nation.
END