The News of the World's fingering of Jerry Hayes MP-whether or not true, and whether or not part of a longterm campaign by the saintly Max Clifford-is yet another in a long series of unpleasant expos?s of the private lives of not very public people. We have grown so accustomed to such excretions from the tabloids that we no longer bother to wonder why they have multiplied over the past few years.
Why are the tabloids now such sleazebags? Week in, week out they ooze tacky tittle-tattle-parading the peccadilloes of royals, former royals, politicians, pop stars and soccer players. Like junkies, they seem unable to survive without their regular fix of fornication and fisticuffs.
Was it ever thus? No. Once upon a time the popular newspapers actually carried news. Murders and film star scandals admittedly, but political and economic news too. The great populist editors prided themselves on their pro bono publico crusades. They were-or affected to be-concerned about society, justice and world affairs. Today only the most grisly crimes, preferably sexually stained, worm their way on to the front pages. The only foreign affairs which get a look in are the endless comings and screwings of travelling celebs.
What has caused this change? Are public figures behaving much more deplorably than they used to? Is it another sign of the general debasement of public standards? I think not. Today's notables probably behave rather better than their (and our!) forebears. That applies to financial matters and most probably to sexual ones too-insofar as such things can be measured.
If society has not changed in these respects, what has? Television. The tabloids' tawdriness has been caused by John Logie Baird's little goggle-box. Or if you prefer, by competition, red in tooth and claw.
Today most people get their headline news from television. More than 15m people watch the news every evening. Unless something big happens overnight, by the time the newspapers hit the newsstands the next morning everyone knows what happened yesterday. The editors strive to find fresh twists, but yesterday's news is not news.
This hurts the tabloids far more than the broadsheets because-as we have learned from Drop The Dead Donkey-television news is forced to cover stories in minutes, often in seconds. A couple of minutes' television is the equivalent of a few hundred words in print-the maximum the tabloids would ever have given to stories, even in the good old days. Television handles the news in the same way as the popular press: pithily and quickly.
The broadsheets handle the news quite differently. They provide background, interpretation and analysis. The news is a peg on which to hang comment and lengthy features. There are many more words on just the front page of the Financial Times than in the entire 30 minutes of News at Ten. Television news does not have the time for in-depth coverage. Moreover, in-depth coverage cannot easily, and above all quickly, be transmuted into exciting footage. It can only be turned into maps, diagrams and talking heads. So television has not threatened the broadsheets, except insofar as it has forced them to delve deeper.
By contrast, as television progressively stole their role in the 1960s and 1970s, the tabloids began to lose out. How could they survive? Only by providing something with which television could not compete. Enter sleaze, breathing heavily. For a variety of reasons television news cannot focus on scandals and sex with nearly as much gusto, or immediacy, as the press. Consciously or not, the tabloids had discovered the perfect, protected, market niche.
First, bonks and bashings-up are, as news items, rarely televisual. It is easy enough for the press to scramble together a few old stills with which to illustrate their spicy scoops. (The Fergie/Bryant pics were exceptions that prove this rule.) Mostly the press uses stock shots of the individuals involved, with maybe a little retouching (Mellor in Chelsea strip).
Second, it is almost never possible to get the participants to appear on camera. The participants, or their friends (friends?) may be tempted into saying something indiscreet to a reporter on the telephone. But who would sound off in front of a lens at short notice? Even the royals' dimmest chums are not that dim.
Finally, and probably most importantly, television news in Britain has no tradition of muckraking. Reith would not have been amused. ITN has its licence to worry about. To get a grubby, down and dirty exclusive may take weeks of research and the backhanding of filthy lucre, covered by sufficient secrecy to preclude your competitors getting in on the act. The television newscasters have never dabbled in that quagmire. They do not know how, they do not much want to learn, and nobody is forcing them to. So the tabloids have had a clear ride. And they have got very good at it. Practice makes perfect.
The clock cannot be turned back. Although it is patently broken, there is no way to mend it. Television news is not going to go away. The tabloids are not going to get any nicer, unless we are willing to pass draconian censoring legislation. And we should not. It is just another of the consequences of competition, red in tooth and claw.
