The print monster

As James Murdoch, with that weird, strangulated parrot voice of his, made a personal deposition to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, BBC Radio five Live (making good its name) broadcast direct from the session.  After hearing some evidence and making a brief analysis of it, one of the anchors intimated a return to listening to the proceedings with “Let’s see where this is going.”  Thus, we were transported back to the Inquiry chamber at the High Court of Justice, whereupon an email of Murdoch’s was read out to the assembled audience containing the salty, angry phrase, “You must be f[**]king joking.”  A hurried retreat to the studio brought a sheepish apology and the collapsing rationale that it was “secondhand swearing but still swearing.”  Caught out there and at 1.45 in the afternoon!

I’m sure there will be fulminations about the BBC’s recklessness and naïvety, polluting the nation’s ears, but, just as the source was a Murdoch, so has damage to British society come from the Murdoch press.  The Daily Telegraph may soft-pedal it, fearing further erosion of the right-wing majority in newspapers, but the case of a bricklayer, Clive Peachey, who did not act to help a two year-old toddler, Abigail Rae, walking alone in the street (the child later was found drowned) out of fear of being accused as a paedophile can be traced back to the Murdoch tabloids, specifically The News of the World under the editorship of Rebekah Wade (now Brooks).  This child’s death was in 2002 yet the inquest is taking place now.

The Telegraph may focus on the number of CRB checks (now standing at 32 million – if that was for a separate individual each time it would be more than half the population of the UK) and how the government secret register, List 99, was operated for a number of years with little trouble occurring, but the level of hysteria engendered by the red-top in the wake of the murder of Sarah Payne in 2000 and then the Soham murders in 2002 was such as to make the country a more fearful place, especially of male adults, all to sell papers for profit.  Witness the semi-literate (some of those placards) mobs in Portsmouth in 2000.  The campaign to introduce a Sarah’s Law was supposed to protect children, yet because Peachey was frightened of being accused of trying to abduct Abigail, she ended up dead.  One can blame the nursery Ready Teddy Go for a catastrophic failure of care or that Peachey was being too cautious, but Rebekah Wade made the Salem witch trials look like examples of moderation.  She is the Lady Macbeth from whom the bloody spot cannot be washed.

From my history, in 2000, I was visiting Tate Modern as an 18 year-old with my family, including my 11 year-old sister.  As I pointed out aspects of the turbine hall, I heard from two female strangers behind me concerned that I was a child molester in the act of grooming, before concluding, “He’s too handsome to be a paedophile.”  Whether it was indeed me of whom they were commenting or another adult with child, to allege looks as a determining factor in perversion and deviancy is pathetic reasoning from pathetic minds, yet the kind that are easily led through the nose by tabloid demagoguery.  One would have to call into question their judgement on anything, not least on whether a person was good-looking or not.  I have no doubt that irresponsible, revenue-driven journalism had unhinged and unnerved them.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Gillingham High Street and a brother and his younger sister, about respectively five and three years perhaps, were racing each other on foot scooters.  The little girl fell off and skidded on the pedestrianised pavement.  I hesitated for a second, unsure of whether my attempt at help would be misconstrued.  I discharged that from my mind because here was a vulnerable human being who may be in need of aid.  I inquired as to how she was and picked up her scooter.  I didn’t dare touch her though since I felt for a lot of people that would be crossing a line.  So instead of proffering my hand to assist her in getting up, I waited for her parents to run over and lift her to her feet.  The little girl was fazed that a person she didn’t know was talking to her, dispensing words of comfort, but her parents were effusive in their thanks and I handed the uprighted scooter to her older brother who had come back.  The Telegraph article stated that over the past decade an atmosphere of mistrust has been created that has left young people more at risk. There was another example when a supply teacher, Martin Davis, was suspended after he gave a stranded 17 year-old pupil a lift home – though eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, a disciplinary that caused much distress to the boy involved who cited Mr Davis as a great help, the teacher has struggled to find work since.

Of course, children (and vulnerable adults) must be protected from abuse as far as is possible.  The facts are that very few paedophiles attack those they do not know and that not all child molesters are male.  Yet Brooks (née Wade) has contributed to the paranoia that there is a trenchcoat pervert on every street corner.  Brass Eye brilliantly skewered the hyperbole (though it was not consistently funny it has to be said) and was slaughtered for mocking the wide-eyed insanity backed by a profit motive.  Many children’s charities decried the counter-productive tactics but the Murdoch red-tops continued to crank up the volume.  The newspapers must have thought they were invincible which is why phone-hacking on an industrial scale was seen as acceptable and so it comes full circle.