The media must do its job holding the great and good to account
The Sunday newspapers this weekend had a classic look about them. There were two dominant news items, both of interest because they revolved around the alleged metropolitan elite. One is a happy story. The other is still unfolding and is likely to have damaging and painful consequences for those involved and perhaps even for a great national institution.
The main picture story in the papers featured a radiant bride and groom at the twenty-first century’s version of a “society wedding”, with a little help from an elderly Just Stop Oil protester. The banner headlines were given over to the grimmer salacious story of “BBC Crisis Over Top Star In Sex Photos Probe”, with a presenter at the British Broadcasting Corporation taking the role once reserved for Scoutmasters and vicars.
Of course, much else has changed since the old heyday of The News of The World identified in that famous essay by George Orwell. For a start, physically printed newspapers are no longer the dominant, mass media, eagerly and automatically consumed by tens of millions. The internet has taken over. Commentary by “Fleet Street” is now swamped by an indiscriminate tsunami of words and pictures online, whether they are informative, inaccurate or inappropriate.
I would not be a journalist if I did not believe that daylight is usually the best disinfectant. I also happen to be well acquainted with many of those seemingly caught up in these two news stories. Without breaching confidentiality or the law, it is worth looking at them for what they tell us about the present balance of power between those perceived as “powerful”, institutions, victims, miscreants, the law, the mainstream media and online.
Full disclosure: my wife Anji Hunter and I were guests at the wedding in Somerset of Thea Rogers and George Osborne; we have known them both for years. Those interested only in Osborne, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, do not do justice to Thea, a highly successful television producer turned businesswoman. There was no Tory conspiracy about their generous and warm wedding celebration. It was a gathering of each of the couple’s family, friends and close acquaintances, which would be familiar to anyone who has ever been to a wedding.
Beethoven’s Ode to Joy blasted out by the choir seconds after George and Thea finished their vows was perhaps both a personal and political statement. Their guests came from the world in which they live and work. Politicians ranged across the spectrum from David Cameron and William Hague to the Liberal Democrat Danny Alexander and Labour’s Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper and Ayesha Hazarika. Media attendees included Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson and Emily Maitlis. No wonder there were reports of “centrist dad dancing” to the tune of the New Labour anthem “Things Can Only Get Better” – naturally after I’d made my excuses and left to go to work at Times Radio of course.
In the days leading up to the wedding, a vicious personal attack on the couple appeared on the internet purporting to be a poison pen letter to the wedding guests from someone intimately familiar with the couple’s private lives. Mainstream news outlets noted the existence of the message but did not elaborate on its contents, which, on closer examination, turned out to be annotated extrapolations from unreliable gossip stories published elsewhere.
It was the second marriage for Osborne, who had divorced his first wife, and the mother of his two grown-up children. As someone who did a similar thing myself, one must accept that such behaviour causes pain to those closest to you. Some will strongly disapprove of your conduct, others are more forgiving. Those aiming to wound people in public are more likely to upset innocent bystanders, most likely the target’s families. Even then, as this weekend, malevolence is likely to be recognised for what it is and be quickly discarded. I have never met anyone who read the inside double-page hatchet job on me, with which The Mail on Sunday tried to keep our story alive for a second weekend.
Meanwhile, climate protesters are rapidly becoming the modern-day equivalent of streakers. Irritating others by their desperate attempts to attract attention. The elderly lady sprinkling protest orange confetti over the Osbornes managed to get herself disowned on Twitter by Just Stop Oil. Even those inflexible moralisers realised that her stunt, like the poison pen letter, had backfired and engendered sympathy for the controversial happy couple.
The “household name” caught up in the “sex photos” scandal has not been so fortunate. There is foul stuff online indiscriminately maligning BBC stars. Justifiable attempts to keep “the male presenter” anonymous while investigations continue, including by the police, have been undermined by the understandable urge of other BBC male presenters to use the internet to declare “it ain’t me babe”. Gary Lineker, Jeremy Vine, Rylan Clark and Nicky Campbell have all outed themselves as innocent.
This is yet another scandal that the BBC could do without after the controversies and worse around Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, “sexed up” dossiers, Martin Bashir, Gary Lineker and Richard Sharp, to name only some of the corporation’s recent difficulties. There is an irony in that any BBC corporate desire to hang the alleged perpetrator out to dry by naming him has been blocked by the “reasonable right to privacy”, established in 2018 after the BBC’s shocking decision to televise live a police raid on the home of the completely innocent Cliff Richard.
Unless the “male presenter” in question publicly identifies himself the awkward guessing game is set to continue. The Sun, and other mainstream media organisations, now obey codes that forbid the straightforward “outing” of an individual. Then there are libel laws and the current legal hostility to the media, exemplified by “stars” ranging from Johnny Depp to Prince Harry. If elected to government, Labour is committed to upholding Section 40 of the post-Leveson-inquiry Crime and Courts Act which would make newspapers liable to pay the prohibitive costs of both sides in a libel action – win or lose – unless they signed up to statutory regulation.
This news story came to light indirectly because of the alleged failure of the BBC management to respond to complaints first made on 19 May by the mother of the teenager said to have received payments from the TV star for explicit photographs. Senior politicians including the culture secretary Lucy Frazer and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves have been quick to criticise the corporation. The BBC director General Tim Davie says he only learned of the issue last Thursday when presented with allegations “of a different nature” by The Sun. Davie has stated “it is important that these matters are handled fairly and with care” towards all involved parties. Critics are contrasting his lack of action in this case with his speedy putdown of Gary Lineker for tweeting against government policy and Clive Myrie for reading out Have I Got News for You digs at Boris Johnson.
The police have been called in; if they launch a criminal investigation it will be a further reason not to name the alleged perpetrator officially. It will be harder to keep it out of the public domain, the use of parliamentary privilege by an MP could be an avenue for this.
At worst, on the basis of what has been alleged so far, the “household name” could face criminal charges for possession of child pornography and paying someone under 18 for explicit pictures. The Sun would not have published without direct evidence from the teenager’s mother as well as physical recordings. As yet there has been no inference that blackmail could have been involved. Even without legal complications, it seems certain that the presenter’s career will be over if there is any significant substance behind the allegations. Over at ITV that was the fate of Philip Schofield.
There has been a change in the public mood. In tandem with increased support for privacy, there is also a strong belief since #MeToo that the rights of victims of any kind of sexual abuse must be heard. Wealth, fame and power are no longer sufficient protections as a number of MPs, the movie star Kevin Spacey, the fund manager Crispin Odey and the “starchitect” David Adijaye, are all currently discovering to their discomfort.
The media should do its job bringing “the great and good” to account, including those from their own patch, whether there is a case to answer or not. Publicity itself does not harm. George and Thea can forget it all, good and bad, and enjoy their honeymoon. For the “household name” and his well-connected ilk, the day of reckoning is here in a way it never was in George Orwell’s time.
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