In Which I Apologise.

On Tuesday I wrote:

No, I don’t feel sorry for the Tabloids, or any of their journalists. In fact, if the tabloid offices all burned to the ground tonight, and there were no more of the shit-rags printed from this day forth, I think that the world would be a little brighter and little more pleasant. And I don’t give a flying fuck about the poor, poor journalists who would be out of work because of it.

This was an angry reaction and I was wrong to judge all the tabloid journalists based on the words of just one of them. I apologise unreservedly for that. I am sure that there are good, ethical, tabloid journalists who want to work within the law to bring the truth about important injustices to the public’s attention, and they should be honoured and allowed to work freely.

When I’m thinking clearly, I do actually know not to generalise. For example, I know that David Cameron lied on Friday when he denied that he had been given specific information about Andy Coulson’s work with corrupt police officers. But this doesn’t mean that all politicians are lying liars. It doesn’t even mean that all Conservative politicians are lying liars. It just means that David Cameron is.

So it was wrong for me to generalise in this way, and I apologise for it.

In addition, on Tuesday I hadn’t foreseen one of the tabloid newspapers would actually close within the week, so my words were just vitriol. When this closure was announced, I reviewed my ‘not giving a flying fuck about journalist’ stance, and it turns out I do care. In fact I very much care that the people who have lost their jobs are not the ones responsible for any crimes, whereas at least one of those who is responsible is still being paid by News International. It doesn’t take a genius to see this is unjust, which is good, because I’m clearly not a genius.

I do believe in a free press. I believe in a balanced press. I believe in investigative journalism. I think it’s damned important to have all of these things. However, I do think journalists should work within the law. I don’t care how close to the line they go, I don’t care if they step on the line and dance on it. I think that the people who are able to dance on the line are the geniuses in the world of journalism.

But I don’t think they should cross the line, and I believe that those who do should be prosecuted accordingly.

In addition to all of this, I think that the free press should report the news. I think that there is space within newspapers to print their opinions on the news. But I think a distinction should be made between the things that the public need to know (the news) and the things that the public enjoy hearing about (the gossip). I think that there might be a place for both of them in the media as a whole, but the gossip needs to be distinct from news.

I can see that the distinction might be blurred in some cases. For example, if the gossip highlights the hypocrisy of a certain figure, it might also be news. If the gossip suggests criminal activity then it is certainly news. If the gossip is just so that people can point their fingers and laugh at someone, then it isn’t news.

One of my problems with the tabloid press is that I don’t think anyone is even trying to make this distinction any more. Anyone, anyone who may have had their fifteen minutes of fame for any reason is looked at as a potential story. It doesn’t matter to them whether that story is news or gossip because gossip sells newspapers, but in my opinion, gossip does not need or warrant the protection of a free press. A free press should only apply to news; something that the public needs to know.

In addition, and this is my second big problem with the tabloid press at the moment; in order to qualify for ‘news’ status, the gossip needs to be true.

I did a very quick and incredibly unscientific experiment yesterday. I searched for the words ‘The Sun Libel’. I then searched ‘News of the World Libel.’ Then, for balance I then searched ‘Guardian Libel’.

The results were not startling or surprising. The majority of links from the Sun and the News of the World were reports of libel cases against those two newspapers. Most of them were recent and in the majority the newspapers lost the case. In comparison, I had to look quite hard to find libel losses against the Guardian.  It goes without question that if the information isn’t even true, then it certainly isn’t news.

So I still have concerns about a number of tabloid journalists. I think that a number of them dehumanise people and turn them into stories, and I think that a number of them lie. I don’t think ALL tabloid journalists do this, but I do have concerns that the ones that do are the ones that rise high in the tabloid press.

So I do have sympathy for the journalists who lost their jobs this week, and I apologise for my ranty rage against the whole lot of them. However, I really hope that any investigations look closely at all the other newspapers and their staff, both tabloid and broadsheet (or berliner) and I hope that the anyone who is found to have broken the law is prosecuted for it.

I then hope that all the journalists who act within the law are allowed to continue free and unrestrained to publish the news.