ARROGANCE

In response to yesterdays DOWNFALL post, here a regular contributor talks about not only the double standards employed by the media in this country, but in fact tells how they invent the rules themselves so as they can manipulate them whatever way they see fit.  Arrogance indeed.

ARROGANCE.

I make a clear distinction between different areas of the paper media, the press. We need and should be thankful for the good press that bring us facts, offer comment and investigate. This is unlike the gutter press which seeks to sensationalise, sell papers at any cost, and get involved in what is wrongdoing. Hopefully the Levenson Report and a few court cases will bear this out.

However I could not hope to pass over an absolute gem of an article I seen online concerning the launch of a new book about the downfall of Rangers FC. The Greenslade Blog in the Guardian newspaper concerns the book by Giolla Bhain;  ‘Downfall; How Rangers F.C. self-destructed’ The article mainly is about how a paper (The Sun – Scottish edition) withdrew from publishing a series of extracts from the book about Rangers. However it is virtually the last paragraph that contains an assertion that is both worrying and frightening and which reflects the arrogance that some people in our society, who pertain to be perfect, as their point out others weaknesses, have about themselves and their trade.

Granted that threats have been made to journalists in the past, the present and no doubt the future, I condemn any threats to people, even gutter journalists, who twist and manipulate the truth to satisfy their own pockets. However the article ends with,  “An attack on a journalist is an attack on journalism and, ipso facto, an attack on democracy.” That is a big statement and a nauseating one coming from people who hack into dead girls phones in order to make headlines and money. Who claim to be royalists but want to publish pictures of a naked prince. Who hounded a Princess to her death. Who think their right to publish overrides all the rights of both rich and poor in this country.

Let us not forget it was a local rag that showed a picture of a man hanging from a road bridge near Bangor. A tragic suicide which must have been pure agony for his family and friends but the gutter press thought it was good enough for its front page. Of course they apologised when they realised that they had overstepped the mark. So this is journalism and it’s equal to democracy?

Questions come to mind. Who said journalists were comparable to democracy? Why journalists of course. And why do they claim this equality? Who set the press up on this pedestal and where did they come from? Are the press enshrined in law? Could we live in a society without the gutter press? The continued rise of the internet may just test that idea out. Did the gutter press create the need for a Press Complaints Commission and then demonstrate how toothless it was, leading to its demise?

Is it the gutter press, with their hacking and manipulation, which has led to the Levenson enquiry and which will, hopefully, give the ordinary person some real protection from salacious and voyeuristic people of dubious integrity? But this statement shows anyone, who cares to question what they write, of how they seek to satisfy their own selfish needs and try to justify their high self-opinion. I am all in favour of restrictions on the gutter press and gutter journalists. They say it will mean less freedom for them. That suits me and others like me just fine. I would like to think that democracy is more important and vital than a bunch of people using an undeserved power, that they cannot, or will not, use properly in applying their trade.