Max Mosley
The first thing that all this made me think of was this . Obviously, NTNON would have had a field day… except that I reckon the main reason there is so little satire these days is the fact that public figures are now not only far more ridiculous than satirists can portray them, but they are also inured to the effects of satire.
But that is a digression. I was in the corner shop this morning and saw the tabloid headline, "The day freedom Got Spanked ," and all I could think of was, "Whose bloody freedom? "
Surely if freedom means anything, then it means that aged perverts can hire consenting adults for a spot of kinky rumpy-pumpy behind closed doors without a newspaper most famed for its topless teenage models getting all sanctimonious about it?
I have to say that however pervy Mosley’s activities were (and, yes, shameful, too. Just email me your favourite adjectives) if this High Court ruling does anything to reduce the amount of smut-grubbing in our tabloids, then it is A Good Thing.
The problem is, it won’t stop any grubbing by the media. The judgement was nuanced – Mosely won because they couldn’t prove the Nazi element. The sexual element was totally permitted. These are papers whose main headlines are who is sleeping with whom in what position, and what’s more they’re the top selling papers in the land. The sheer headline of “Freedom Got Spanked” to report that they’d lost shows how little they actually care about the ruling – it is hardly an apology, and frankly £60K to the NOTW is nothing.
If you want to stop this kind of “reporting” the simple thing to do is send an e-mail to the NOTW and the Sun that you’re going to stop reading them, and why. Then do it. Not on line, not in print. If you really want to make more of an impact, boycott Murdoch prodcts all together – The Times, Sky TV, The Simpsons. And again, let them know. And then persuade other people to do the same. If enough people stop buying the NOTW, they’ll change their tactics. The problem is, until people do, they’ve got no incentive commercial, legal or otherwise.
Comment by Anne — July 27, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
£60k compensation is nothing. £850k in fees is not.
Obviously, the media is going to talk their way out of this. That’s what they do.
Meanwhile, critics of Murdoch will continue to evangelise against his media machine that demonstrably has more democratic appeal than most governments, but offends a few people who don’t understand the difference between “right minded” and “like minded.”
Regardless of the legal niceties, this is another case about perceptions. The media is managing the perception like any other group that relies upon public opinion would. Anyone who understands the legal niceties knows that the media lost fair and square – but can we really expect 60 million Brits to subscribe to that understanding?
Similarly, making a positive impact against Murdoch – it will never happen because of a boycott, because you will never orchestrate a boycott against what people want. It will only ever happen if someone else manages audiences more successfully than the Murdoch machine does, and offers them something that they want more.
The NOTW didn’t publish its story about Mosley for sanctimonious reasons; they did it because they understand that salacious stories sell, especially when they have a reading age of 9 and lots of pictures.
That’s why the Guardian has a circulation of 350,000 and the News of the World has 3,500,000.
Comment by grumpyoldman — July 27, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
You’ve inadvertently hit the nail on the head. NOTW has a massive circulation (though dropping, like all print media – sales figures are no longer the way to calculate readership figures. On line is the way to go.)and an average reading age of 9 in its stories.
And 6 million Britons who “can’t be expected to understand the legal niceties.” Why?
Dumbing down, and being encouraged to do so by such things as NOTW.
Mind you, it is always good fun to actually talk to people and explain how the media won it. Actually, most of the people seem to know that and find the “I’m going to take my loss badly and write stories about how that nasty nasty judge is taking my freedoms away” pretty clear on its face.
Mind you, it is usually pretty good to be as suspicious of like-thinking as it is of right-thinking. Bush got the popular vote, so did many dictators and of course we always have the classic “Bring me Barabbas.” I always find the “He just says what everyone else is thinking.” a massive cop out. If that’s your argument, you’ve lost.
Comment by Anne — July 28, 2008 @ 5:10 am