The bewitching ways of wickedness

Tabloid journalism desensitises us to the real evils around us.

There were questions as to whether an early release was justified, although all the relevant boxes had been ticked. But questions are one thing. Mobs baying for blood, reporters and photographers on motorcycles pursuing taxis taking ex-prisoners to their destinations around the city and camping in the front gardens of their relatives are quite another.

By a remarkable coincidence, on the same day as the media circus, Ireland’s Press Ombudsman, John Horgan, was giving a lecture on the media’s tendency to consider the unwelcome publicity which they could give to criminals as an intrinsic component of the punishment for their crimes. He disapproved, reminding listeners that the primary role in protecting society against criminality belongs to the police and the courts, and should not be outsourced to the media.

“Is the sentence passed by the media always life? Is someone who has been convicted of a criminal offence and has served his sentence always a criminal, and not entitled to basic human and civil rights?”

He contrasted favourably the “reticence” of countries such as Sweden and Holland about publishing information on people involved in criminal trials with the amount of media attention these cases attract in Ireland. This reticence was justified, he said, because the public shame arising from media publicity was arbitrary and selective, and furthermore involved “collateral damage” to innocent parties and could even create a risk to the life of the criminal.

The tabloids’ offence is not to be light, entertaining, and crisp. The tabloids' offence is to distort, dissemble, and grossly exaggerate the significance of events. Mr Horgan also pointed out that the word “fury” had appeared in recent Irish newspaper headlines in 14 out of 18 days. “Isn’t there a risk that if you cry wolf too often, when there’s only a rather cross dog barking outside, that people will become desensitised to real risks, injustices and scandals? Have we the energy to be that furious, all the time?”

And now we have tabloid radio and tabloid TV. Once upon a time I dared to hope that with an increasingly educated public and an expensive publicly-funded broadcasting service – as Ireland and Britain and most countries have – the presentation of news would not succumb to dumbed-down hysteria.

These hopes faded long ago. The government radio and TV were baying just as loud as the tabloids the other day.  On Ireland’s premier radio channel’s afternoon news programme, the rapist’s release got the full treatment – featuring live outside broadcast, analysis, speculation and a vox pop. The story held the headlines for the full day on every other channel in the country. The afternoon news report on radio accounted for over 22 minutes of the 45-minute bulletin with a graphic rehashing of his crime.

On the same bulletin less than two minutes were devoted to a positive take on the Irish economy. The governor of the Central Bank had given an important interview to the London Daily Telegraph, helping to calm jangled nerves in the markets about the latest economic indicators. It was an important story and of far more consequence for the lives of Irish people than the story of a released rapist.

Did they really think the release story was that important – or did they simply think they needed to pander to the voyeuristic tendencies which they knew the next morning’s tabloids would be pandering to, whipping up vengeful mob elements in the process?

One consolation for sensitive readers in Dublin, of course, is that in London the tabloids are worse -- “nasty and extreme”, in the words of one Irish PR consultant. Perhaps they have bigger fish to fry.

Last week the Guardian’s Marina Hyde (there’s a journalist with a conscience!) penned a withering condemnation of this slavering voyeurism after supermodel Naomi Campbell’s appearance at The Hague. She was answering questions there about blood diamonds Liberia’s former dictator Charles Taylor was alleged to have given her.

But despite testimony in that trial about war crimes of the most sickening brutality, stories about countless executions, about cannibalism, about incredible cruelty, what the media wanted was celebrity goss, Ms Hyde lamented.

Um, whatever? Unless this is about Mia Farrow I am way B-O-R-E-D. Clearly, then, the message from The Hague today is simple: you can kill and rape and mutilate as much as you like, but if you really want to gain a purchase on early 21st-century western discourse and are not simply pissing about, you do need to have once had contact with a celebrity in some incredibly minor way. Even now, let's hope that Janjaweed militia are making a pitch for posterity by sending baskets of muffins to Lindsay Lohan, because if and when they are ever brought to justice, they sure as Shirley aren't going to make the major bulletins without that kind of news peg.

Three cheers for Ms Hyde. She and the Ombudsman go to the heart of the matter. The really corrupting thing about the tabloid mentality is that we ignore wickedness unless it titillates. More than making us superficial, it makes us heartless.

Michael Kirke is a freelance writer in Dublin.  He blogs at Garvan Hill.

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