I listened to a piece on the radio seriously debating whether it would be a good thing if tabloid editors ran the country. Well, let's think about this... Er, no. But that's just me, and I think one of the prerequisites for the job of runner of the country is the ability to think beyond next week's recycling box, another is principle and a third is the determination to lead for the common good and not pander to the kneejerk reflex of the majority. Perhaps I'm something of an intellectual snob. No actually, I know I am. Let's not be so dismissive.
So what did the tabloids ever do for us? Let's have a little think. A few spring to mind...
From the Sun, the immortal "GOTCHA!" when 'our boys' sunk the Argentinian ship the General Belgrano in the course of the Falklands War. When it became clear how many Argentinians had died, the headline was replaced the next day by "ALIVE! HUNDREDS OF ARGIES SAVED FROM ATLANTIC!" Never mind about the 368 who died.
Kelvin Mackenzie, the then editor of the Sun and genius behind these was recalled at the time by Roy Greenslade who worked at the paper.
"MacKenzie, convinced that he was properly articulating his readers' views, was unconcerned. He even laughed off Private Eye's spoof Sun headline, "KILL AN ARGIE AND WIN A METRO", joking: "Why didn't we think of that?" "
Nice.
The Sun was also responsible for:
"THE TRUTH" headline followed by a number of statements about what Liverpudlians are upposed to have done during the Hillsborough tragedy where 730 people were injured and 96 died. (urinating on bodies, picking pockets of victims, beating up police). All these turned out to be lies.
The News of the World, in the wake of the tragic murder of seven year-old Sarah Payne by a paedophile whose path she had the misfortune to cross, launched a name and shame campaign, picturing convicted paedophiles on their front pages. This launched a frenzy of attacks, many on people who looked like the depicted offenders. In one attack which would be comic were it not so scary, a paediatrician was attacked by someone who couldn't spell.
And naturally, many of those pictured went to ground where the police couldn't keep track of them. Result.
Why would anyone think this is a good idea? Because some people think that if most of the people believe something, it is therefore necessarily right. I don't. But that's something I'm going to continue tomorrow when I have the time to do it justice, under the headline "Democracy has limits". There - if anyone reads this I bet they'll have something to say about that, even before I write my piece.
1 comment:
Couldn't agree more about the tabloids. We have the same trash on this side of the Atlantic. But where should the vitriol be directed: Towards the exploiters who make money off the nonesense or towards our society that misses the good old days when we could watch people being devoured by wild beasts in the Coliseum?
There is not a single tabloid that could stay in business if the public wasn't hungry for what the trash-rag was pandering. (In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, a tabloid publisher has the illusion that he forms public opinion, but when he tries to form an opinion the public doesn't want, he is destroyed - an accurate portrayal in my opinion.)
I think this is the point you are making which leads directly to your next post on democracy, which I'll move on to eagerly.
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