The fiasco over the reported widespread phone-hacking of public and private figures by the Rupert Murdoch-owned News of the World truly epitomizes what critics have been saying about the steady decline in the ethical and professional standards of Britishjournalism.
Those who have kept a weather-eye on the British media over the years-and that has included several media and academic institutions in Britain too- warned a long time back about the perceptible deterioration in journalistic standards from the days when British journalism was among the best in the world and boasted professionals any media organization would have been proud to have working for them. Several individual editors and journalists come to mind, several of them from the prestigious “Guardian”- previously the Manchester Guardian- of which I was Colombo correspondent some 40 years or so ago.
But over the years professional standards continued to drop-and there are several reasons for this including the pressure from TV and more recently its 24-hour news cycle-which worried professional bodies and media training organizations. The recent shenanigans by the News of the World which led to its closure of this 168-year old tabloid is but one, albeit perhaps the most far reaching in its consequences, in a long line of media misdemeanours that has troubled British journalism and brought it into disrepute in the UK and elsewhere.
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| People reading the last edition of the News of the World. Courtesy - Reuters |
It is not surprising then that the public perception of British journalism is so low that an opinion poll in the UK about five years ago placed journalists right at the bottom of the popularity ladder, just one step above real estate agents and one step below politicians, if I remember correctly. It is not merely the manner in which British media go after the ‘news’ but also the techniques/ruses they employ in the pursuit of news that often violate the laws of privacy and journalistic ethics, that are being called into question by those in authority as well as the public.
One of the fall-outs of the News of the World scandal that is spilling over beyond the UK given the global ramifications of Murdoch’s media empire that owned this best- selling Sunday newspaper in Britain is the deepening scrutiny of the country’s Press Complaints Commission (PCC) the watchdog over media indiscretions and journalistic standards. The PCC which is a self-regulatory body has come in for plenty of flak since it was first set up 20 years ago. One of the most scathing attacks on it came from the Liberal Democrat peer Lord McNally who once said it had “all the powers of a toothless poodle.”
Though one of the PCC’s more recent chairman former British diplomat Sir Christopher Meyers did much to resurrect its image, some of the criticisms the PCC brought upon its own head by way of its opaque adjudication process and what appeared to be blatant attempts to protect the media and its practitioners from public criticism and chastisement. The PCC consisting of the major publishing houses in Britain and the Commission itself consisting of some of the editors of leading newspapers besides some lay members tended to circle the wagons when faced with public complaints. If the British public, particularly if they were not celebrities but the average citizen was treated with hauteur by the PCC complainants who were decidedly not British and were protesting at reportage of “Third World” countries were given a run-around with delaying tactics or convoluted arguments.
As one who protested to the PCC 10 years ago against the Sunday Times (a quality paper from the same Murdoch stables as the News of the World) and made serious charges regarding its journalism I have personal experience of the attempts of both the SundayTimes and the PCC to sweep the complaint under the carpet. The PCC says that it gives its decision on a complaint within 4 to 6 weeks. On my complaint it took almost seven months. Had I succumbed to the attempts to put me off, with obvious procrastinations and obfuscations both by the Sunday Times and the PCC this complaint too would have gone like the vast majority of complaints made to the PCC at the time. If the PCC and the Sunday Times thought I would give up in exasperation it was because they did not know I was a journalist myself and I saw through some of the crude attempts made hoping I would drop my charges against the Sunday Times out of sheer exhaustion.
It all arose from a couple of articles written by the London Sunday Times’ award winning journalist Marie Colvin who surreptitiously entered LTTE-held territory, spent a week or two (she seemed unclear whether it was one or two) and was wounded by grenade shrapnel when she tried to sneak back across government lines. She subsequently lost sight in one eye. I wrote to the Sunday Times pointing out serious errors of fact that needed to be corrected and expected the newspaper which was a member of the PCC to publish it. While it published several letters praising Colvin’s journalism, the Sunday Times failed to publish mine despite a reminder.
Despite advice from colleagues I complained to the PCC on the grounds that Colvin’s articles and the newspaper violated two of the articles in the PCCs Code of Conduct-that is Article 1 on accuracy and Article 2 on an opportunity to reply- to which the Sunday Times was a signatory. The PCC seemed to go along with the argument of the Sunday Times that it could not respond to the points raised in the complaint because Marie Colvin was recuperating from her injuries and is not available to reply. I asked what her recuperation had to do with the Sunday Times not publishing my letter where I was exercising my right of reply. That did not need any comment from Colvin but the editor of the Letter’s Page.
On the second occasion when the Managing Editor of the paper claimed that Colvin was still recuperating I pointed out to news reports that she had attended a cocktail party in London and had also given an interview to the BBC. If the BBC could talk to her why was the paper that employed her unable to do so? Eventually the PCC after much heeing and hawing accepted my arguments and adjudicated in favour of my complaint. Another person of Sri Lanka origin had also protested to the PCC on the same issue, while letters written to the Sunday Times critical of Marie Colvin’s articles were never published.
The point is that the PCC’s adjudication issued some seven months after the original articles which the Sunday Times was compelled to publish, made no mention of the particular articles in question or the name of the writer. So an average reader of the adjudication would have no memory of the articles vaguely referred to. The Sunday Times buried the decision on Page 45 with a label headline which totally obscured the fact that Colvin and the newspaper had been faulted for “inaccurate” reporting which was misleading at times and for “bias” and for not giving me the opportunity of reply.
The News of the World fiasco has now focused attention on the functioning of the PCC as well. The need of the moment is to give more teeth to the PCC not to replace it with another body. The answer to the problem is certainly not a government-installed institution or one with the government’s shadow over it. That would have little credibility among the public and the result would be more complainants against the media seeking redress in the courts. What is needed is a robust institution that is pro-active and looks into media indiscretions on its own accord without waiting for complaints to arrive. The PCC as it currently functions and is constituted unless it has knowledgeable lay members is hardly going to win adherents to the PCC. It will be worse for the British media and for the public if the government decides to take a hand in trying to reform the situation.
The media industry must make a conscious effort to return to the days when ethics and professionalism ruled and give the PCC punitive powers to act against those who violate its code of conduct. |
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