ABSTRACT
When the Annan Committee was reviewing the broadcasters’ performance in the mid-1970s, its attention was forcefully drawn to their handling of industry. The Trades Union Congress, the Confederation of British Industry, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and Aims of Industry all made sharply critical submissions. So the Glasgow Group’s readiness to complement their content analysis with fieldwork offered the welcome possibility of shedding light on the behaviour and attitudes of various participants in the news process. But although they offer in Bad News a chapter on ‘The Trade Unions and the Media’, there is no corresponding section on ‘Management and the Media’. Faced with a choice, but knowing that within broadcasting the hostility of trade unions was known to be regarded as a real constraint on coverage, we decided to concentrate on the unions’ formal relations with the medium’.
