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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