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The British media is failing the public

Thu Jul 09 01:04PM

The media is failing the British public as badly as parliament. As a recent movie put it: Who Watches The Watchmen?

By Ian Dunt

We all know there's something deeply wrong with Britain today. A sense of dissatisfaction and dull resignation haunts the country. For months now we've savaged politicians. That problem is still very, very far away from being fixed. But it's unfortunate we've isolated our anger in one area.

Today's Guardian allegations about an apparent culture of law breaking and privacy invasion at the News of the World could give us the opportunity to look closely at the British media, and ask ourselves how it is failing us. We'll be lucky. The trouble with scrutinising the media is that it's the media who have to do the scrutinising. And people tend to not to defecate in their own backyard.

As the recent movie posters for the Watchmen blockbuster put it: Who Watches the Watchmen? An unwritten and unmentioned rule exists in Fleet Street, and has done ever since journalists set up offices there. You don't attack a fellow hack. For years, commentators would write nosey, judgemental stories on politicians' sex lives while pursuing highly dubious embraces of their own. But who would write about it? Only themselves. And they were the last people who would.

But now things are infinitely worse. The media failings are legion. Too many Westminster journalists accept small exclusives in exchange for good behaviour. Too many of them are genuinely friends with those they report on.

The decline of newspaper sales has crippled mud-raking journalism, with fewer and fewer journalists producing more and more stories. The only way to do that, of course, is to be at your desk, and we are now in the position where many of the stories journalists produce are based on press releases or one of the news feeds, like Reuters or the Press Association, rather than their verified account of an event.

The public have become part of the problem. There is outcry at the increasingly populist subjects covered by broadsheets, but editors don't commission work which doesn't sell. I have personally felt the sinking feeling in my stomach as a serious political story I spent hours working on was outperformed ten times over by a fluffy piece I scribbled up with the word 'celebrity' in the title.

The ownership of media companies has become a silent national scandal. How can we possibly treat media ownership as if it were any other commodity? It is not equivalent to milk, or racing cars, or DIY tools. It is the means by which the issues of the day, and the public's opinion on them, are framed. Very recently, Lord Carter's Digital Britain review suggested top-slicing the licence fee. Rupert Murdoch hated the idea - not because he loves the BBC, but because it helped out his rivals at ITV. And, predictably, his newspapers began to trot out precisely the same line we know he believes in. From America's unspeakably appalling Fox News, to Australia's suitably titled The Australian, to the UK's Sun and the Times, Murdoch must be considered one of the most powerful men in the world. Where is his democratic legitimacy? It is non-existent.

And finally, there is the puerile attitude of the media, which focuses endlessly on trivial nonsense with only the most cursory attempt to pretend it's of any genuine interest at all. After the editor of the News of the World, Colin Myler, lost the Max Mosely case, he told reporters: "It was of legitimate public interest and one that I believe was legitimately published." The sexual mores of the head of Formula One is not a matter of public interest. It is something which is interesting to the public, which is a different matter entirely.

There are pitifully few criteria upon which to say that someone's sexual habits are any of our business. Promoting celebrities to the status of role models - as in the case of Kate Moss - is usually preposterous, almost as preposterous as pretending a supermodel taking cocaine is remotely noteworthy.

Where MPs especially, or those in the public eye in general, partake in behaviour which explicitly runs against statements they have made, or positions they hold, that is in the public interest. But the standards should be strict. Even in the case of footballers, who are undoubtedly role models to many, it seems childish at best to pay any attention to their sexual habits, or even their drug use.

This attitude - typified by the Mosely case - represents one of the most puerile, unpleasant aspects of the British character: the twitch of the curtains, the nosey, sniggering interest in other people's personal lives. On the whole the British are far more progressive than this, and as a nation, we believe fiercely in privacy. But most tabloids seem obsessed with bringing out the worst part of our character.

That we should have editors arguing for the legitimacy of this kind of journalism when serious political coverage is lying dead in a ditch is deeply humiliating to my profession. The case against the media is so severe it appears conclusive. We desperately need to give it the kind of scrutiny politicians receive. But will we, as an industry, be brave enough to do it?

There is hope. And that is the curious irony of today. It took decent, investigative British journalism, from the rather remarkable Nick Davies, to uncover a story about bad, unpleasant British journalism. All is not lost. But it will be, if we don't start doing something about this situation now.

Comments1 - 10 of 314

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So True!
FOr too long we have sat by and let the news papers get away with whatever they want. The 'quote' ridiculous stories from reliable 'sources' about things that thy actually don't know anything about! They harrass people in the public eye saying that they chose to be famous! When did Prince William or even (and god help me for saying it) the Prime Minister 'choose' to become famous? And even if they did what gives themthe right to delve deep into their private lives and hang out their dirty laundry?
A cap needs to be put on newspapers about how much they can say and what. I mean it has become normal these days for newspapers to have pictures of dead bodies, even children, on their from covers for all to see. No one objects, why? I NEVER buy newspapers (or magazines for that matter, which are just as bad) because of the lies and filth they pew out!
To all thos journalists who trail after 'celebrities' and people in the public eyes, making their life hell: GET A REAL JOB!
Enough said lol.

From meerin2007 on Thu Jul 09 01:23PM
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I for one would love to see the media shown for what it truly is. The politicians are slimy, but the media is the worst by a long long way with its sensationalism, bias and appalling behaviour to follow their agenda... but as this article says, why would the industry - where by it's nature nobody gets away clean and where poor ethical decisions arent just allowed, they are rewarded - show up the murkiness of its own industry?
I can only have hope that this will come from outside hte mainstream media, but I am not hopeful - they just aren't loud enough and the public are so easily deafened...

From david_j_dixon on Thu Jul 09 01:23PM
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Right on Ian - and you haven't even mentioned the reporting of science stories! Nick Davies wrote a a good book about the dire state of journalism -'Flat Earth News'. Perhaps the advent of 'citizen journalism' through blogs and the like will have some beneficial effect but I am not optimistic.

From steele25312 on Thu Jul 09 01:26PM
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I completely agree with this piece. It's a 'chicken or egg' situation - who is to blame? Is it the idiotic British public with its insatiable desire for gossip and trivia, or is it the media who insists on supplying that demand? We can't sit back and mutter that Blighty is going to the dogs but keep reading the same rubbish. In particular the current British obsession with celebrity is a national embarrassment. Having worked with young people for many years I am appalled at their lack of any kind of real aspirations - beyond quick money and fake tan.

From arch_scheme on Thu Jul 09 01:30PM
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Thing is that most of the so called news is a pack of lies !!! It is all manipulated by the people who really run the world.If this was not so we would have had full disclosure regarding UFO's and the aliens living on the earth. Global warming is a lie, 9/11 was a lie, 7/7 was a lie,both false flags, I could go on and on.Everyone on the planet should do their homework and investigate all these topics on thre internet, the proof is all there !!!!

From viejapetra on Thu Jul 09 01:34PM
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The press, like politicians, will never change! How can they, when their job is to find out all the @#$% that is lying in the gutter and dressing it up into pulitzer prize winning stories that hold the attention of the nation? They will never focus all that attention on themselves, and it is a shame. Jounalism should be about reporting the stories, not allowing the bias of the owner to cloud the judgement of reporter. It is obvious that whatever bias the reporter feels will come across in the story, i mean, its his story! But they should be allowed to work unhindered, and within a strict code of what is a story and what is someones private life.

From lucky_dog1970 on Thu Jul 09 01:35PM
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Go on then viejapetra (post number 5) - in a nutshell, spell out the "Truth" we have all missed out on. I am intrigued...

From david_j_dixon on Thu Jul 09 01:38PM
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At last - an honest non-TV/radio journalist. I really didn't think they actually existed. Similar to comment 1, I never look at newspapers, much less buy them for that very reason.

From matchwalk on Thu Jul 09 01:39PM
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It's far too late to change the media 'business' without a paradigm shift in how the media is structured and delivered. Mass media should be independent, not controlled by a select group of corporate figures - new law required? How about disemminating across the UK rather than the London media hub. Independent and small media centres that represent the UK as a whole, not the London Show piped to the rest of us in all of it's cheap, pop celebrity-obsessed shallowness (does anyone else feel that celebrity seems to get mixed in with everything?). Would never turn a profit though would it..........so what is the point of the media? Money making enterprise or public guardian? You can certainly have the former without the latter (what we're stuck with now) but can you have the latter without the former? Ha ha only in a communist state and we wouldn't want that!

From chevved on Thu Jul 09 01:47PM
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It's far too late to change the media 'business' without a paradigm shift in how the media is structured and delivered. Mass media should be independent, not controlled by a select group of corporate figures - new law required? How about disemminating across the UK rather than the London media hub. Independent and small media centres that represent the UK as a whole, not the London Show piped to the rest of us in all of it's cheap, pop celebrity-obsessed shallowness (does anyone else feel that celebrity seems to get mixed in with everything?). Would never turn a profit though would it..........so what is the point of the media? Money making enterprise or public guardian? You can certainly have the former without the latter (what we're stuck with now) but can you have the latter without the former? Ha ha only in a communist state and we wouldn't want that!

From chevved on Thu Jul 09 01:48PM
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