The media flexes its muscles
Raymond Snoddy says that judging by the reaction to the recent haul of sensational stories in the media, “something has changed in society”.
We sometimes forget the impact of the media, or at least take it for granted. There is just so much information whizzing around at the speed of light. It must cancel itself out – just so much background noise.
Tell that to John Terry’s Dad, as we might as well call him, David Laws, the Duchess of York, Lord Triesman, and even Gordon Brown himself.
All were scuppered, or at least seriously undermined, by direct media action in recent weeks.
And it wasn’t the action of one rogue media outlet, or talented investigative team, depending on your point of view. No less than three national newspapers and a national 24-hour television were involved in producing the unrelated stories.
In fact it is difficult to remember such a haul of sensational stories over a six-week period with such relatively little criticism of the media.
A decade ago politicians would have been frothing at the mouth, denouncing “trial by media” and demanding privacy legislation – to the extent we don’t already have such legislation courtesy of the Bill of Rights.
Something has changed in society. Have we become desensitised to the public ripping apart of individual lives? Have we become more censorious, or is it that there is no one to lead the charge any more as MPs cower in their second homes thumbing through the latest interpretation of the rules on expenses?
Questions can actually be asked, and should be asked, about all of them because careers should not be destroyed out of a sense of journalistic fun – or competition.
Lets start with the News of the World contribution to investigative journalism, and two very different characters, Edward Terry and the Duchess of York.
Yesterday a judge described the Terry case involving the supply of a class A drug as “a very, very clear case of entrapment solely to create a newspaper story”.
Terry, who sounds a bit of a geezer, got a six-month suspended sentence rather than the maximum possible 14 years in jail the law allows in theory.
Reports say that a NoW reporter posing as a chauffeur spent six weeks befriending Terry in a local wine bar before asking him to get some cocaine for his employer.
A clear case of entrapment? Except, according to the NoW, Terry asked for a £40 fee for the small transaction and the paper had begun the investigation “based on information received”.
You might think it unfair that Terry senior was subjected to such scrutiny based on the success of the son. And we must assume that the decision to devote so much time to such an investigation had nothing whatever to do with John Terry’s failed super injunction against the News of the World.
It was also unfortunate that the very modest coverage of the case in today’s Sun couldn’t find room to include the entrapment allegations of the judge.
The justification for the NoW‘s exposure of the Duchess of York also depends on whether, as they claim, they were acting on information received or simply taking part in a cruel fishing expedition. If the word was the lady was prepared to take money for introductions then it’s a case of ‘fair cop, guv’.
The most questionable of the five is the entrapment of Lord Triesman. Leave aside the historic folly of the older man and balance of mind of the younger woman with the tape recorder: where does the public interest lie in the wine bar ravings of the now former chairman of the Football Association.
Did no-one in the Mail on Sunday ask what actually was the point of the story, or what public purpose would be served by publication. Was there any evidence for the Triesman gossip that somehow Spain and Russia would collude to prevent England winning the World Cup in South Africa and the right to stage the competition in 2018?
We all know that the England team are very capable of failing to win the World Cup without any external help.
The resignation of Gary Linekar as a Mail on Sunday columnist is just one indication that the paper went too far and will not be quickly forgiven if England fail to win the World Cup for 2018.
The end of the brief career of David Laws as chief secretary of the Treasury at the hands of the vastly experienced Daily Telegraph MP’s expense team seems open and shut.
Yet in his Times column earlier this week former MP Matthew Parris lambasted “the stinking hypocrisy” in arguing that Laws’s departure was inevitable.
The main Parris case for the defence rests on a very precise argument – that we have all created our personas by our early 20’s and that Laws created his in a very different era for the homosexual community. And once you have in fact created a life that is fundamentally untrue it is a difficult knot to untie, particularly if you have a political career, and an old mother, to consider.
Long ago now Chris Smith proved you could come out, be true to yourself and survive politically.
David Laws thought he could get away with it because as a Lib-Dem he never imagined in his wildest dreams that he would suddenly find himself in the cabinet.
The Daily Telegraph was right to publish and Laws was right to resign. His position was, as politicians like to say, “untenable”.
It is equally true that he should remain an MP and, given the creation of five year parliaments, he can reasonably aspire to return to the cabinet, this time without the need for any lies, deceptions or half-truths.
The dust has already settled on Gordon Brown, although Mrs Duffy will have her permanent footnote in political history.
Sky was right to broadcast and the BBC has made it clear that it too would have gone ahead though it would have taken longer.
The lesson for politicians – everyone – is clear. Public life has become coarser and everyone should regard a microphone as a dangerous weapon, always.
Score? Four – one to the media with just a hint of offside on a couple of other occasions.