News of the Screwed

Last weekend the long running British Newspaper, the News of the World (NoW), printed its last paper. I’m tempted to follow that with ‘and nothing of value was lost’ but that would be a little unfair. NoW did play its part in revealing various scandals and pieces of corruption, most notably of late, the spot fixing scandal that hit cricket nearly 12 months ago. However, NoW have always represented, in my mind, the worst kind of journalism; the kind of sensationalist, reactionary, unprincipled do-anything-for-a-story journalism that gives the trade such a bad name. Nothing displays this better than the reality which has become apparent over the last few weeks.

For those that don’t know, it has been revealed that NoW have been hacking into the phones of various celebrities, politicians and sports stars, on the hunt for exclusive stories, for a number of years. Obviously this is completely immoral, as it violates the privacy of the individuals being hacked. Most controversially, NoW allegedly hacked into the phones of murdered teenager Milly Dowler and the parents of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, as well as relatives of dead soldiers and 7/7 victims, which shows gross insensitivity, as well as a disregard for people’s privacy.

The upshot of all of this has been the closing of NoW and the resignation of several key figures in the scandal from New International (the owners of NoW), sever pressure on News Corporation (of which News International is a subsidiary) owner, Rupert Murdoch, to clean up his act. He has since released an apology, which is something, I suppose. The Prime Minister has announced a police investigation into both the phone hacking and into newspaper ethics in general.

This scandal is the tip of an iceberg, an iceberg that has also been something of an elephant in the room for a while (the tip of the elephant? Ok, enough with the clichés). Almost all newspapers, certainly all tabloid newspapers are guilty of this sort of misconduct. Celebrities are constantly and consistently harried, spied on, stalked and photographed by unscrupulous journalists on the lookout for a story. There’s little concern for the sheer unpleasantness of all of that unwanted attention for the celebrity in question, or the privacy of said celebrity. Although I’m not much of a fan of many celebrities who are famous for very little apparent reason, I do at least respect them as human being, rather than story generating devices for desperate journalists.

While the legality of this is questionable, it is extremely disturbing. The principles upon which the free press were founded centre of providing the public with a source of news that does not come from the government and so is able to offer a frank and (hopefully) truthful account of what is going on in the world, without any fear of it simply being government propaganda. Of course that does not prevent it from being someone else’s propaganda, but then what isn’t? This is, of course, a good thing. One of the cornerstones of a democratic and just state is the free press, because it provides voices for people outside the government. All through the 19th and 20th centuries, the free press has had an incredible influence on politics, and domestic and international affairs. It keeps the public informed and is a constant regulatory force on the government. However, the press is also incredibly powerful in its own right. After all, it is not the public who write the newspapers, it is the journalists, and what they say is largely dictated by the editor-in-chief. Newspapers don’t just inform opinion, they shape it as well. The editor of a major newspaper has a great deal of power.

So when we have newspapers who indulge in illegal and immoral invasions of privacy, newspapers that’s principles seem to lie on ever-shifting foundation, newspapers that always try to find the most outraged or outrageous positions on everything, no matter how much that might contradict last weeks sensationalism, we have reactionary journalism that helps to shape a reactionary public. NoW was such a paper and one can only hope that the unearthing of this scandal will help to show people that this sort of journalism is immoral and should have no place in a our media.

Of course, the problem is that people still buy it. NoW sold millions of copies a week, as do all the other tabloids. Tabloid newspapers far outsell traditional broadsheets. We can criticise unscrupulous journalists and unprincipled editors all we want (and I will continue to, because they hold some of the blame), but, as with anything in the free market, the consumers rule. If celebrity scandals and reactionary sensationalism sells, it will continue to be written.

There is, however, something that can be done by law makers. Yes, you are reading this, I am arguing in favour of regulation. Invasion of privacy is a violation of rights. Spying on people, hacking phones, photographing people in their private property and following people should be illegal and journalists who hound celebrities should be punished under the law. This wont stop journalists trying for exclusive news stories, but the courts need to show that they have back bone and are willing to stand up for people’s privacy and stop journalist from acting as they do. If this means fewer exclusive scoops on the private lives of our favourite celebrities, then that’s probably a plus. You might argue that this is a violation of the free press, but that is freedom to write what you want, not to do what you want when those actions are at odds with the rule of law. Newspapers might find themselves making less money, but that might encourage them to find better way of selling papers, like reporting on real news,

Newspapers themselves can and should act as their own regulator. Journalists have a bad reputation that can’t be good for the industry at all. By regulating themselves, papers might actually be able to get themselves a better reputation and hence lure some of the talent that is leaking away to online journalism back to the printed word. Then again I can’t see newspapers having the forethought to do that, especially if it means losing some revenue in the short term. It’s probably too much to ask for journalist and editor to allow principles to get in the way of selling copies, certainly for enough of them to do that to actually make any difference.

Even more unlikely is the possibility that the public might realise that, not only is news about celebrities thoroughly uninteresting, but the way in which that news is acquired is immoral, and refusing to buy tabloid newspapers any more, deciding instead to read better sources of news and thus becoming better informed. Pigs might fly. We can but hope that this scandal might have revealed just what lengths some journalists will go to in order to get news and put some people off, but I doubt it will make much of a dent in sales figures.

This scandal most certainly will not bring about a brave new world of journalistic and editorial standards. Very little will really change because journalists, editor, politicians and regulators are all deeply entrenched in an unhealthy, dependant relationship that profits all of them so long as the public doesn’t understand just how deep it all goes. When one slips up, they all look bad, there are red faces, apologies, a few meaningless changes of boarder and in a few months everything is back to normal. Some small changes for the better might come from this, but don’t expect much of a revolution from the old media.

Walk like an Egyptian

Last week and over the weekend (yes, I know this is late, and no, I don’t have an excuse) Egypt imploded into internal turmoil, culminating in riots and angry crowds calling for President Mubarak to stand down. The unrest was triggered by the downfall of the Tunisian government earlier this month. Mubarak has a 30 year history of abuse, negligence and oppression in Egypt which looks set to end in the coming weeks.

The most interesting thing about this story as far as I am concerned is that in most people’s list of countries with oppressive and undemocratic regimes neither Egypt nor Tunisia tend to feature very highly. We all know about Zimbabwe, North Korea, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, indeed most of the Middle East would be black listed by most people with a working knowledge of international politics. Mubarak’s 30 year dictatorship, along with President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia’s 23 years in office have largely slipped under the radar.

This begs an obvious question. Why are some world dictatorships given a far worse press than others? An obvious answer would be to look at the severity of the offences; here we can clearly see why Zimbabwe and North Korea remain in the public eye. However given the revelations that have come out in the last few days about lack of basic freedoms in a grossly undereducated population in Egypt indicate that there might be something more sinister involved.

If one looks at the regime in Iran for example, there is little to suggest that the situation is any worse than in Egypt. While internationally aggressive, internally Iran has far better standard of education and, in many cases, more freedom. Yet the media focuses far more on the evils of the Iranian government (of which there are many) that they do on those of Mubarak.

Perhaps the most obvious case of double standards amid the international community is the example of Iraq. The Iraqi people did not even have to rise up in revolt for the American government to send in the troops. Saddam’s regime was terrible and there is no avoiding that, but then so is Mubarak’s. The international response has generally been to talk a lot of nonsense about moving towards a democracy and supporting the Egyptian people’s right to freedom of expression. There has not even been a hint of condemnation directed towards Mubarak from international leaders. I suggest that, were this to happen elsewhere in the Middle East, the international community would be up in arms condemning the government for crimes against its people.

A simple explanation for this seemingly unbalanced response from the international community is that Egypt has generally internalised its troubles. Egypt does not strut around on the world stage like Iran and North Korea. Mubarak is not outspoken like Mugabe. Egypt rarely finds itself in the international limelight these days and if it does it is usually in relation to Israel. Egypt simply isn’t interesting. The dictatorships people have heard of generally pose a threat to world peace.

This is, of course, not an excuse. An offence against human rights is an offence against human rights whether is threatens to spark an international conflict of not. The Egyptian people will not take solace in the fact that, despite 30 years of an oppressive regime, their government is not a threat to anyone else. While of course it is the job of journalists to report on international affairs and focus on the ones which are most dangerous to the world at whole, the fact that Mubarak can pass under the radar in such a way for 30 years is unacceptable.

The interesting thing is that, for many years now, Egypt has been an ally of the United States. The Suez Canal is a vitally important international trade route that, according to the American government, needs protecting more than the freedom of the Egyptian people. Mubarak has no ambition to hurt America, so is considered far safer that other Islamic leaders, so, despite the lack of democracy or liberty, Egypt is a good ally to have.

This blatant, shameless and unprincipled manipulation of international affairs with the sole intention of strengthening America’s position on the world stage should surprise no-one in light of the Wikileaks scandal. For a country built in principles of life, liberty and happiness for everyone (not just Americans) it is depressing that the US government openly supports despotic regimes for their own benefit.

The dreadful situation in Egypt is an exemplar of what is wrong with international politics. Democratic countries in which political and social freedom is widespread did not leap to the support of the Egyptian people as they burst out in protest against 30 years of oppression. People, you see, are volatile. The Islamic Brotherhood, an extreme Islamic group, may well aim to fill the power vacuum left by Mubarak. This would lead to The West losing a valuable ally in the Middle East and control of the Suez Canal. Better for Mubarak to remain in power so as to maintain America’s favourable status quo. Of course there is another option. The protests are not explicitly religious. There are, of course, religious elements to the protests, but protests calling for greater freedom are hardly likely to end up supporting extreme Islamist groups who would doubtless curb freedom just as much as Mubarak. A democratic process could be established which allowed the Egyptian people to chose who rules them.

Fortunately this is most likely to happen. However it will happen in entirely the wrong way. The Egyptian people will and have been left out to dry by the international community aiming to maintain their political advantage. The right thing will be done because that’s what works best for America, not because democracy and freedom are political rights that all should have and that all should strive towards. 

Question Time

This Thursday evening BNP leader Nick Griffin appeared on the BBC’s Question Time, a show where a panel of five politicians or public figures face questions from an audience made up of ostensibly ordinary people. If you haven’t already seen it then I suggest you watch it on iplayer. If you’re not from the UK then I expect it’s on youtube by now. Obviously to get such a controversial and disliked figure on Question Time was somewhat of a coup for the BBC and I’m sure the viewing figures will reflect this. I certainly tuned into the show for the first time in a while. While I’ll discuss what actually happened on the program later, I want first discuss about the issue of whether or not Griffin should have been on Question Time at all.

In the week or so leading up to his appearance, many politicians expressed their concerns that the BNP should not be given such a mainstream platform from which to express their views. Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary was the most outspoken critic of the decision by the BBC, saying that ‘you cannot treat the BNP like all the other parties.’ I would argue that we have to. Freedom of speech and democracy are values that are fundamental to our society, to deny the BNP a platform from which to speak would be to fly in the face of those values. We may rightly abhor Griffin and his party’s views, but we cannot stop them from expressing them. Similarly we cannot stop broadcasters like the BBC giving them a platform. Freedom of speech is not up for debate, it is not something we can choose to adhere to or not depending on who’s speaking; it is an absolute which is fundamental to civilised society. This not to say of course that we should give Griffin a free hand to say whatever he wants; it’s not like question time is a party political broadcast. The only way to show the BNP up for what they really are is to enter into open and frank debate with them, and this exactly what Question Time is for. To deny Griffin a place on the panel would be to try to sweep his vile policies under the carpet, rather than face them head on and challenge his sick assumptions. We cannot try to ignore Griffin because if we do that we allow his insidious ideas to fester, rather we must face him head on and show him that we reject absolutely all that he stands for.

I’m not going to claim that this was wholly achieved on Question Time on Thursday, but it did go some way to showing exactly how vile a man Nick Griffin is. The show was not without its problems; with a clearly hostile audience and even David Dimbleby, the host, at times unable to hide his bias, it occasionally descended into farce. I would not go as far as to say, as Griffin has said following the program, that it was a ‘lynch mob’, but the atmosphere was at times rather more hostile than I would have liked. Much as we might want to take our righteous indignation out on Griffin, we have to restrain ourselves or we lend credibility to the his cause. Dimbleby needed to be seen to be more impartial; he is the moderator of the discussion, it is not his part to take sides. Because he showed such clear bias it felt like the entirety of the show was out to get Griffin, rather than engage him in a proper debate.

That being said enough was done to make Griffin come out of the evening with a few very bloody scars. The absurdity of the BNP’s concept of an ‘indigenous Briton’ was shown up on several occasions and his statement that Winston Churchill would support the BNP where he still alive was made to look absurd time and time again. Griffin repeatedly contradicted himself and dodged awkward questions. He tried and failed to squirm and slime his way out of difficult situation, trying to apply empty phrases about ‘British, Christian values’ to everything. The other panellists were having nothing of if thankfully. Overall then Griffin was made to look like a fool. His racist policies were shown up for what they are; thoughtless bigotry. The embarrassment was not as total as many would have liked, but it did enough to mean that the BNP will have lost far more than they gained from this week.

Despite some problems, then, I think we can say that Peter Hain was wrong. We should allow extremist to have a voice, both because of the principle of free speech and because we need to publicly show extremist and hate based ideologies to be absurd. We cannot ignore them; we have to battle them head on in a civilised debate. While Dimbleby may have made the debate into a farce at times on Thursday, in principle what happened was exactly what should have happened. Griffin was made to look the fool and with any luck many more people country wide will be aware of just how absurd and hateful the BNP are.

It's political correctness gone mad

I don’t watch Strictly Come Dancing because I have better things to do, like gouge my eyes out with shards of glass. If I did watch Strictly Come Dancing I would probably have been filled with indignation at the recent ‘racist’ comments uttered by Anton Du Beke, who said his dancing partner looked like a ‘paki’ after she had had some spray tan put on. Instead I am filled with scorn for the media explosion that this throw-away comment has caused.

Du Beke has of course apologised unreservedly and said that his comments were not intended to be offensive. His partner, Laila Rouass has accepted the apology. So now we can move on, yes? No? Apparently we now have to have a debate about what is appropriate to say on TV and whether we should use words which could potentially be offensive so some people.

Of course this is not one issue but two; what is appropriate for television and what language it is appropriate for us to use in our day to day lives. Let me put my cards on the table and say that I don’t think Du Beke’s comments were appropriate. He is a figure in the public eye, watched by millions countrywide. He should not be using sensitive language like ‘paki’. While he made the comment in jest, it is a word which has many unpleasant connotations. In the public eye a comments which is supposed to be interpreted as a joke made between two friends are taken out of context. When the camera start rolling nothing you say or do is private, which is what makes reality TV such terrible viewing.

This is not to say that offensive words should not be used on TV; most comedy shows would lose all their material for a start. But Strictly Come Dancing and other show like it are meant to be light, family entertainment, they are not meant to be scandalous or racy. Bruce Forsyth, the presenter of the show, defended Du Beke’s comments, saying that people should have a ‘sense of humour’ about these things. The problem is that Du Beke’s comments weren’t even funny; it’s the kind of crass, immature comment I would expect from a 5 year old.

Which doesn’t lead me on at all well to the second and most interesting issue; what language is appropriate in our personal lives? In a multicultural world in which awareness of different social, racial and national groups is greater than at any point in history surely we should watch what we say? Well that goes without saying, but that does not mean that we should remove words like ‘paki’ from our lives. What we have to be careful of is context and intent.

Of course comments specifically intended to be offensive to a certain racial or social group, or indeed any individual, are inappropriate and never justified. Similarly a throw away comment which may not be intended to be offensive, but is taken to be offensive is inappropriate and we must be careful of what we say. There is such thing however as offensisensitivity (actually that word is made up). Some comments are not supposed to be taken to be offensive and people who interpret throwaway comments made in jest as racism need to get their heads out of their backsides. I think what Forsyth means when he said ‘we need to have a sense of humour’ is that we need to stop getting offended at comments which are not supposed to be offensive and are not even potentially offensive to us. While he may have been wrong regarding the Du Beke issue, he is right that people need to stop being offended on behalf of other people. I doubt very much that many Pakistanis were all that offended by Du Beke’s comments, and yet a several hundred people complained about it. I would bet that most of these people were not from Pakistan.

Essentially what I’m trying to say is that we need to understand that most of the time, people get offended in contexts where comments were meant as jokes. The thing is, when we joke about racism, we are acknowledging that it is wrong and indeed that it is ridiculous. By trivialising racism it is made to look even more ridiculous and hence be discredited. Now I very much doubt Du Beke had this in mind, but that’s not the point. The point is that when people get indignant about throw away comments, it puts them closer to a par with actual racism, doing nothing to solve the problem, simply muddying the water.

Arpigeddon

Q: what is the cure for swine flu?

A: Oinkment.

That’s right, now that we have all gotten over the fact that wine flue is about to wipe out the human race the terrible jokes have began to seep from the pores of people who think they’re being clever when really they’re just being annoying. We are surely all doomed; if the swine flu doesn’t kill us we’ll be driven to suicide as a result of all the atrocious jokes about it. I’m not sure which is more dangerous actually.

The recent rise of swine flu, I refuse to use the scientifically correct version on the basis that it has subscript numbers and they are the work is Satan_, as a pretender to the recession’s throne as the cause impending apocalypse has been hard to miss unless you live on the moon, or alternatively the deep south of America. Much like the recession, and indeed any story with any mileage, the popular media has latched onto the impending swine flu pandemic like a half starved dog latching onto a disappointingly grizzly piece of meat. As is almost always the case with media more concerned with selling newspapers than actually informing the public they have blown the threat of swine flu so far out of proportion that it makes Jeremy Clarkson’s ego look reasonably sized.

No doubt there is some threat posed by swine flu; given our lack of immunity to it we are all at risk of catching it and because it is a flu virus spread by water droplets in the air it can spread through a population like wildfire. However as a virus it is about as potent as the normal flu that is pretty widespread in this country every goddamn winter! Flu does kill about 1 million people worldwide every year, but that is a tiny drop in the ocean compared with how many actually catch it. Most people just have some antibiotics, a few days off work sleeping it off and then they’re fine.

One of the main worries voiced about swine flu is that quite a lot of young healthy people who would not normally be susceptible to the flu virus are catching it. But this does not mean to say that young healthy people are dying from it, in fact if young healthy people do catch it they have a much betting chance of fighting it and recovering, because they’re young and healthy. Their immune systems are strong enough to fight the virus and get over it. Flu is a problem when the old and infirm get it because their immune systems don’t have the strength to fight it off. The only thing that is going to come of the outbreak is a few more sick days and poor jokes.

So in short the mass media has taken the limited threat of a swine flu pandemic and made it seem like a huge threat to national health, even though the UK, for once, is extremely well prepared, with plenty of flu vaccines in stock after the winter. These flu vaccines work very well against swine flu so we have very little to worry about, yet the whole country is so panicked that we have resorted to making very, very bad jokes about it. We were as worried about the potential Sars and Bird flu outbreaks which were ultimately forgotten all about when the media because bored with it and threw to away like a child with ADHD discarding a new toy because it wasn’t interesting. The threat of bird flu is still very real; in fact it has barely diminished from what it was when it was the number one story for longer than ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna was at number 1 in the UK singles chart. But bird flu went out of fashion and it is now time for swine flu to have its time in the sun while we all walk around in face-masks wondering why no-one is going outside anymore.

In a couple of months swine flu will be resigned to the graveyard of diseases which were supposed to kill us all but never lived up to expectations. Submit epitaphs on a postcard in the form of haikus please. I wonder which animal will lend its name to a disappointing form of flu failing to live up to expectations next. I have it straight from the horse’s mouth that it will be equine flu.