Christine Chapman and Ian McNulty, reporter
and producer respectively of last night's Diverse Reports (Channel Four), do not like journalists.
In this programme Chapman suggested that there should be a law against the kind of scandal-mongering
of which Sir Ralph Halpern is the latest victim.
The style of the documentary was dramatic. Interviews were interspersed with moody shots of reporters
and photographers.
Fat, all male, chain-smoking and sloppily dressed, they were an unnattractive bunch.
Close-ups of grubby fingers clutching the inevitable cigarette reinforced the sense of distaste.
Lovers
Repeated shots of a photographer (his camera functioning as a mask) punctuated the programme, and
the nastily impersonal sound of his shutter whirring, suggested the implacability of the press. No point trying to appeal
the this faceless automaton's better nature.
This heightened style matched the urgency of Chapman's views about the way the Press pry into what
does not concern them "Quite simply," she said, "there ought to be a law against it."
In many countries there is. As a French lawyer explained, people are not so bothered the other side
of the Channel.
It's not just the French that take a more sophisticated, less prurient view of their celebrities'
love lives. They also protect their citizens' privacy with laws backed up by fines. |
Kevin Kennedy, star of Coronation
Street, once obligingly put his arm around a female friend to please a photographer. Months later the picture appeared
with the story that the two were lovers.
Kennedy, interviewed in the Coronation Street pub, spoke more in sorrow than in anger. He can take
it. "I am a public figure to a certain extent," he said.
But for his real girlfriend and his relationship with her, the incident has been "damaging."
His mildness was remarkable, but when the press is a dangerous enemy Alex Lyon, formerly of the Home
Office, agreed with Chapman that something should be done but "no government has been anxious to alienate the press."
Actors like Kennedy may reflect that "public figure" status is not all bad and be prepared
to pay the price of fame. When scandal touches politicians it becomes more serious.
Morality
Parkinson, Archer, Tatchell, and Brown have all been judged and found wanting as potential rulers
because their sexual behaviour did not square with conventional morality.
Editors insist that their readers have a right to know. But, as Alex Lyon pointed out, Lloyd George
made quite a good job of running the country in spite of his long affair with his secretary.
In insisting on prying into a politician's privacy we "loose good people unnecessarily and discourage
other good people from coming in."
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