Media mendacity
Two British newspapers have admitted something quite remarkable; lying. The Daily Express and the Daily Star have respectively published apologies to Kate and Gerry McCann for publishing stories for which there was “no evidence whatsoever” (Daily Express, 19 March). It’s a shame that they didn’t print something in their apology with a greater degree of verisimilitude: “we made stuff up to sell papers”. I have to say I was surprised that more bloggers didn’t pick up on this.
There is a question about how one can know that any entry in a dictionary is valid if we know one to be wrong. The answer is that the dictionary is not completely accurate but that it is put together in good faith, with due care and attention, that it will rectify mistakes and so, for the most part, it is reliable. The same question applies to newspapers; indeed, it is repeated on a daily basis. The two newspapers in question have been printing rot for months, but only carry the apology for a day. Even as they apologise for libelling the McCanns, they are publishing stories around the inquests being conducted by Lord Justice Scott Baker where stories that have all the consistency of will o’ the wisp being reported as fact.
The same attitude extends to immigration, with economic immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers being treated as having the same standing in law. If nothing else, it makes it very hard to have a reasoned, public debate around immigration.
The implications extend beyond the political aspects of the UK. One of my favourite writers, Michael Billig, introduced the concept of banality into the academic study of nationalism, building on the notion of print capitalism established by Benedict Anderson. In both these ideas, newspapers have key roles in defining, shaping and spreading national sentiment through the creation and reproduction of agreed, accepted norms. The Star and the Express, which more particularly drapes itself in the Union flag, would, I contend, seem to be promoting a bastardised, mendacious nationalism that titters and gossips and sees rumour and supposition as of worth and of interest. That bodes ill for our polity.
xD.
