Taking Pride In Prejudice

By Catherine Mayer

The studios of 18 Doughty Street, Britain's latest political-news network, are located in a venerable town house in a part of London that was built on the spoils of empire and that, for more than a century, has been the capital's center of jurisprudence. To the right and left and across the road from No. 18, attorneys peddle notions of justice and fair play. But visitors to 18 Doughty Street are advised to check such outmoded concepts at the door. "We provide some balance," says Iain Dale, the network's co-founder and star presenter, "but no impartiality."

Americans are used to political programming served up with more than a dash of fire breathing, but in Britain, television and partisanship don't mix. A few Bill O'Reilly lites and Stephen Colbert wannabes occupy late-night slots on the BBC and the country's commercial networks, but their employers are quick to rein them in if they stray too far from properly milquetoast commentary. That's in part to avoid censure from Ofcom, the independent regulator charged with ensuring that on-air political programming stays ideology free.

Such strictures help Britain's TV networks maintain high standards of impartiality and accuracy in their reporting. But they can also make for dreary viewing. That's why 18 Doughty Street--which is broadcast exclusively over the Internet--is catching on. As many as 25,000 viewers daily are logging onto a website that offers five solid hours of live-streamed punditry and reams of archived footage. By existing online, Doughty Street can avoid the long arm of regulators, which means "we're completely up-front about our views," says Dale, 44, a Conservative blogger. His three co-directors are also Tories. But the station's weeknight chat shows are just as likely to bite chunks out of David Cameron's new-look Tories as to draw blood from Tony Blair's Labour. Says Dale: "I never want to be a lackey who trots out the party line."

An instinct to kick the Establishment is reflected in the lineup of presenters. One of them is Peter Tatchell, 55, a gay activist who twice attempted a citizen's arrest of Robert Mugabe because of Zimbabwe's treatment of homosexuals. In his first appearance on the Internet channel, he lit up the blogosphere by saying that Mugabe's assassination might be justified if political and legal avenues had been exhausted.

Intemperance can be a useful marketing tool, but it's Doughty Street's interactive features that have gained it the most attention. In one, viewers are invited to choose between competing pitches for campaign ads on themes like party funding or hidden taxes. The pitch that attracts the highest vote is then filmed and broadcast.

Ideas for a spot called "The World Without America," designed to combat the "rampant anti-Americanism" that Doughty Street says has taken hold in Britain, included a closing shot of the Statue of Liberty swathed in a burqa. The winning entry is based on mocked-up newscasts from earlier decades, reporting events that might have occurred without the benign influence of the U.S. A final screen flashes a selection of great American contributions to civilization: "A free Afghanistan," "Dishwasher" and "Elvis Presley." After spoofs of the ad sprouted on YouTube--"Slavery," "Nuclear Bomb" and "Vietnam War," retorted one--the original ad shot up the ranks of YouTube's most viewed videos, attracting more than 200,000 viewers to that site and boosting traffic to Doughty Street.

Of course, that's still a small fraction of the number of Britons who get their politics from the BBC. (On average, nearly 1 million viewers watch Newsnight, BBC TV's flagship late-evening current-affairs program). Doughty Street isn't ready to challenge the Beeb just yet--it's still living off $2 million donated by one of its directors--but it has grabbed the attention of the country's hoary media establishment.

Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC's global-news division, says the Internet channel "is forcing mainstream broadcasters to think what we can provide that they can't and to focus on our core values of objectivity and impartiality." That riles the denizens of Doughty Street, who claim the BBC has a liberal bias and are soliciting ideas for a campaign to stop the Beeb's taxpayer-funded subsidy. Not that Doughty Street is opposed to bias. "Do you know the problem with balance?" asks Dale. "It's boring." Quite a few Britons are starting to agree.