I agree in principle, but it's worth also examining the effect this has on how people end up in media echo chambers— when the media is a monopoly like the BBC and people expect to hear Jeremy Paxman grill you, you're going to go face the music, because not doing so will be even worse for you than going and faceplanting (a similar thing could be said historically about Peter Mansbridge on CBC in Canada).
In the US, though, there's no such impetus. Interviewers and even whole outfits can get cut off from access for the slightest thing, so then you have the phenomenon of politicians only ever being interviewed in increasingly safe environments, with friendly hosts who suck up to them, following prearranged lines of questioning, etc. Any apparent instances of toughness are basically theatre, with both sides in on the act.
Anyway, I don't have an answer here. Choice in media is absolutely a net good, and competition is critical to a healthy overall dialogue. But I feel that some of the more subtle costs of this approach are not always considered in discussions about it.
> people expect to hear Jeremy Paxman grill you, you're going to go face the music, because not doing so will be even worse for you than going and faceplanting
the lesson of Republicanism/Trumpism in the last decade is that this is very much not true. If parties are sufficiently polarized, you can just not go and nothing will happen, people will even defend your decision for not participating in a "biased" interview.
No actual bias need occur of course. And on the flip side refusing to participate in the actual hyper-partisan media will be perceived as justification for the former action. "Both sides do it!" and so on.
Yes, that is precisely the point I am making— that this effect is only a thing in places like the UK with a strong national public broadcaster to whom politicians must answer.
but what if they simply... didn't? Most of the tories are going to turn out to vote Tory regardless, no? Negative media coverage of, let's say, brexit hasn't significantly dissuaded them, even after the initial leave vote when the forthcoming consequences were explained to them in appropriate detail by that strong national public broadcaster.
What if the politician in question just said "my party's position is clear and I won't be repeating myself ad nauseum, good night"? What would really happen? Would those tories really not turn out, or even vote for the other guy? Really actually?
The thing we are finding in the United States is that a lot of those "musts" in our media and in our government turn out to just have been social convention, a "would normally" if you will. People assume that something bad will happen to anyone who doesn't play fair, or someone who tells blatant lies, or who doesn't execute some duty of their office in an evenhanded way. But if you just don't, and you do it shamelessly enough - nothing actually happens. Particularly if you control enough of the government.
But the public is not really so good at actually holding politicians to account. Those tory voters will pull the lever regardless, if nothing else "because the other guy's worse, isn't he?".
And you have your own Murdoch media to radicalize those voters too. They don't have to play to the state broadcaster, if you have enough voters who think the BBC is just being unfair to their guy. And Murdoch media lets the party get the message out directly to the voters.
There's no easy solution, these kinds of attacks fundamentally "break" democracy, democracy works on the idea that voters are fundamentally well informed and at least somewhat even-handed. But Murdoch media and other greasy rags use the freedom of the press as a trojan horse to spread lies, and fundamentally a lot of voters are susceptible to it and will just keep voting for "their guy" regardless.
In the US, though, there's no such impetus. Interviewers and even whole outfits can get cut off from access for the slightest thing, so then you have the phenomenon of politicians only ever being interviewed in increasingly safe environments, with friendly hosts who suck up to them, following prearranged lines of questioning, etc. Any apparent instances of toughness are basically theatre, with both sides in on the act.
Anyway, I don't have an answer here. Choice in media is absolutely a net good, and competition is critical to a healthy overall dialogue. But I feel that some of the more subtle costs of this approach are not always considered in discussions about it.