Now there’s an ominous title for a post. What’s started this post is the blogstorm over an article by Paula Murray. Read this, this, this and this. In short, Murray ran an article on the front page of the Scottish Sunday Express that attacked survivors of the Dunblane tragedy for using social networking sites like any other teenager. There are some slightly crude comments and some photos of them being teens. It would appear that a quote from Elizabeth Smith MSP was grossly taken out of context and that the article was deliberately run shortly after the survivors reached majority.
It is merely the latest, and a particularly egregious, example of the tabloids running stories that are not news, not fit to print, go after people who are unlikely to respond with content that seems designed to titillate the sense of moral outrage that a section of society – sadly, this is not an exclusively British phenomenon – seems to have permanently turned all the way up to eleven. It helps to shift newspapers and therefore increases advertising rates.
Let me describe a hypothetical situation. An increasing number of articles of this type (that is to say, of no public interest but of a salacious nature and for the most part aimed at people who do not have the means to take legal remedy) lead to an increasing amount of comment and dissatisfaction amongst what I am going to call the liberal elite, the political class, certain journalists and the media. This is increasingly picked up at Westminster, with Westminster Hall debates. Brought into these debates are the twin evils of reporting good science badly and reporting bad science – quack remedies and so on – at all. There is a public outcry after a child’s death is partially attributed to a particular newspaper article saying that such-and-such a disease can be cured by eating goji berries. Eventually, the PCC steps in and sets new guidelines for science reporting as an EDM condeming the poor levels of science reporting receives much support at Parliament. However, shortly afterwards, some poor sod ends up feelings so hounded by the media that they tragically commit suicide and it is felt that self-regulation is failing; not only are the papers reporting non-news, they are not reporting actual news. A Ten Minute Rule Bill is introduced by the MP whose constituent committed suicide calls for the PCC to be made a statutory body.
Perhaps this is all a bit unlikely; perhaps not. I think that state regulation of the newspapers would be A Bad Thing; however, the current, irresponsible manner of the exercise of free speech by some parts of the media could make that more likely.
xD.