The Public Realm
Towards the end of last week, Eamonn Lillis was found guilty of the manslaughter of his wife and sentenced to seven years in jail.
Written as baldly as that, it's almost surprising that it made the news at all. And yet the fascination with the Eamonn Lillis case is only now beginning to fade. Today, the Irish Independent have helpfully told us that he'll be living in the most luxurious cell a prison can offer; The Evening Herald were good enough to report terrifying stories of breadknives, gleaned from the perfectly reliable Bloke With No Surname Who Rang Liveline; The Irish Examiner has reported, predictably, of various peoples' fury at the sentence; and just about every paper has talked of how the Gardaí have "defended" their decision not to expose a witness to a rugby scrum. Due to most Irish tabloids never bothering their arse to put anything online, I can't link to the stories about how Wife-Killer Lillis actually cooked his daughter a big dinner before going in the clink. Jaysus, cooking a dinner. Like an ordinary person, rather than the six-headed monster we know him to be.
In short, much of the coverage has been obscene, and was lambasted by the judge himself. The Irish Times editorialises on this today, although does so without coming to any conclusions whatsoever. Probably because there were no trade unions involved.
There are two things that underpin discussion of any sort of questionable newspaper coverage, be it a manslaughter trial that happens to involve people who aren't poor, or Wayne Rooney having a thing for grannies. Namely, the price we pay for a free press; and the fairly inarguable fact that these stories wouldn't happen if people refuse to engage with them.
Obviously, a free press is essential-
Well, hang on a minute. We like to talk about the freedom of the press, but we seldom think about what that means - hardly surprising when 'freedom' can mean the right to choose between a Mac and a PC. Whenever a sensationalised story comes around, it will inevitably be justified by talk of the public's "right to know"... but what does the public have a right to know, exactly? I certainly don't feel I have a "right" to know about Eamonn Lillis' daughter, because her existence doesn't affect my life one way or the other. The word "right" automatically means it's based on a need, and I don't need to know anything about the background of anyone involved.
And this clearly doesn't apply to the profession of court reporting, which is an important and (I imagine) rather thankless task. I do need to know about his trial - or at least, I need that information to be available - because the operation of the law is a fundamental part of society, and the media play a key part in it being seen to be done.
The main restriction of the press' freedom is defined by defamation law, and that can be more or less summarised by "don't make shit up, lads." Discussion of the free press assumes that the media have a right to talk about more or less whatever they want, so long as it's true. In fact, there's no reason for this to be the case, even if it's difficult to imagine a workable law which would restrict what's supposed to be fair game. We've reached a point where it's automatically assumed that the media have a "right" to shove cameras in the face of Jean Treacy - you know, the woman who's not been found guilty of any crime whatsoever - or follow around a seventeen year-old in hope of a photo-op. They don't, and it's going to be impossible to discuss this - or any other form of privacy issue - if this isn't addressed.
So, in the absence of any real control of their topics, how do newspapers decide what they're going to talk about? This is usually where "The public wants..." comes in; certainly, it's self-evident that the media wouldn't bother reporting on stories if they didn't shift papers, and certainly true that the press we get is a reflection of the society we're in.
The tone of that argument is one of a society that's uncomfortable with the idea of elites. We're allowed to have them, so long as we don't acknowledge that they exist. Ultimately, newspapers are institutions that, for all their tribulations, inhabit a position of privilege; they control the spread of information, and they're written by people who are better-educated than the majority of the population. They are an elite, by definition; even phrases like "If people didn't read these stories," with its loaded use of the word "people", gives the game away pretty sharpish (the person talking about "people" doesn't often include themselves in the classification). In so doing, it transfers responsibility away from the institutions, who should know better, to people who demonstrably don't.
The way that we refer to dismissively to tabloids, as if they're unavoidable rags to keep the plebs happy, is the culmination of this perverse elevation of the "educated classes" into a position of an elite without explicitly saying so. A paper like The Irish Times, or Sunday Business Post, or The Guardian, avoids lurid storylines... but that's only because they're not interested in the market, and their chosen demographic views such stories distastefully. Newspapers know who they're aimed at. If the Irish Times occasionally produces a feature on life in a dodgy housing estate, it's written entirely from the perspective of a well-educated middle-class person on a breathless foray into enemy territory. People from Disadvantaged Backgrounds (I'm using capital letters to convey an ironic tone, and I've already put educated classes in inverted commas) aren't thick, or stupid, or genetically predisposed to rubberneck and human tragedy. However, the Quality Broadsheets (yep, capitals again, same reason) make no attempt to understand anything about this section of society, because it's not where their market is. They're abandoned as a market who probably just want to read The Star, and then we get sniffy when they actually go and read it.
Look at it this way, and the institution of our print media becomes obviously an elite; and, because we're so unhappy to even acknowledge that elites exist, and that they aren't by definition a bad thing, we struggle to discuss the responsibilities that come with the term.
We're perfectly happy with this state of affairs in television, which is why all free-to-air channels are given a public service remit as part of their charter... oddly, given the problems that newspapers are having in finding funding, the notion of "public service newspapers" would be a way of securing state subsidies, regulating the nastier press stories, and setting out clearly what is and isn't in the public interest. It would provide for a press regulatory body with teeth, and need not compromise objectivity. The British Government ain't too fond of the BBC, but they still fund it.
Newspapers and news coverage, matters. The Lillis affair has shown, in so many ways, how badly it can malfunction. And yet we shrug our shoulders, mutter about freedom of the press, and assume it has to work this way. It doesn't.
Written as baldly as that, it's almost surprising that it made the news at all. And yet the fascination with the Eamonn Lillis case is only now beginning to fade. Today, the Irish Independent have helpfully told us that he'll be living in the most luxurious cell a prison can offer; The Evening Herald were good enough to report terrifying stories of breadknives, gleaned from the perfectly reliable Bloke With No Surname Who Rang Liveline; The Irish Examiner has reported, predictably, of various peoples' fury at the sentence; and just about every paper has talked of how the Gardaí have "defended" their decision not to expose a witness to a rugby scrum. Due to most Irish tabloids never bothering their arse to put anything online, I can't link to the stories about how Wife-Killer Lillis actually cooked his daughter a big dinner before going in the clink. Jaysus, cooking a dinner. Like an ordinary person, rather than the six-headed monster we know him to be.
In short, much of the coverage has been obscene, and was lambasted by the judge himself. The Irish Times editorialises on this today, although does so without coming to any conclusions whatsoever. Probably because there were no trade unions involved.
There are two things that underpin discussion of any sort of questionable newspaper coverage, be it a manslaughter trial that happens to involve people who aren't poor, or Wayne Rooney having a thing for grannies. Namely, the price we pay for a free press; and the fairly inarguable fact that these stories wouldn't happen if people refuse to engage with them.
Obviously, a free press is essential-
Well, hang on a minute. We like to talk about the freedom of the press, but we seldom think about what that means - hardly surprising when 'freedom' can mean the right to choose between a Mac and a PC. Whenever a sensationalised story comes around, it will inevitably be justified by talk of the public's "right to know"... but what does the public have a right to know, exactly? I certainly don't feel I have a "right" to know about Eamonn Lillis' daughter, because her existence doesn't affect my life one way or the other. The word "right" automatically means it's based on a need, and I don't need to know anything about the background of anyone involved.
And this clearly doesn't apply to the profession of court reporting, which is an important and (I imagine) rather thankless task. I do need to know about his trial - or at least, I need that information to be available - because the operation of the law is a fundamental part of society, and the media play a key part in it being seen to be done.
The main restriction of the press' freedom is defined by defamation law, and that can be more or less summarised by "don't make shit up, lads." Discussion of the free press assumes that the media have a right to talk about more or less whatever they want, so long as it's true. In fact, there's no reason for this to be the case, even if it's difficult to imagine a workable law which would restrict what's supposed to be fair game. We've reached a point where it's automatically assumed that the media have a "right" to shove cameras in the face of Jean Treacy - you know, the woman who's not been found guilty of any crime whatsoever - or follow around a seventeen year-old in hope of a photo-op. They don't, and it's going to be impossible to discuss this - or any other form of privacy issue - if this isn't addressed.
So, in the absence of any real control of their topics, how do newspapers decide what they're going to talk about? This is usually where "The public wants..." comes in; certainly, it's self-evident that the media wouldn't bother reporting on stories if they didn't shift papers, and certainly true that the press we get is a reflection of the society we're in.
The tone of that argument is one of a society that's uncomfortable with the idea of elites. We're allowed to have them, so long as we don't acknowledge that they exist. Ultimately, newspapers are institutions that, for all their tribulations, inhabit a position of privilege; they control the spread of information, and they're written by people who are better-educated than the majority of the population. They are an elite, by definition; even phrases like "If people didn't read these stories," with its loaded use of the word "people", gives the game away pretty sharpish (the person talking about "people" doesn't often include themselves in the classification). In so doing, it transfers responsibility away from the institutions, who should know better, to people who demonstrably don't.
The way that we refer to dismissively to tabloids, as if they're unavoidable rags to keep the plebs happy, is the culmination of this perverse elevation of the "educated classes" into a position of an elite without explicitly saying so. A paper like The Irish Times, or Sunday Business Post, or The Guardian, avoids lurid storylines... but that's only because they're not interested in the market, and their chosen demographic views such stories distastefully. Newspapers know who they're aimed at. If the Irish Times occasionally produces a feature on life in a dodgy housing estate, it's written entirely from the perspective of a well-educated middle-class person on a breathless foray into enemy territory. People from Disadvantaged Backgrounds (I'm using capital letters to convey an ironic tone, and I've already put educated classes in inverted commas) aren't thick, or stupid, or genetically predisposed to rubberneck and human tragedy. However, the Quality Broadsheets (yep, capitals again, same reason) make no attempt to understand anything about this section of society, because it's not where their market is. They're abandoned as a market who probably just want to read The Star, and then we get sniffy when they actually go and read it.
Look at it this way, and the institution of our print media becomes obviously an elite; and, because we're so unhappy to even acknowledge that elites exist, and that they aren't by definition a bad thing, we struggle to discuss the responsibilities that come with the term.
We're perfectly happy with this state of affairs in television, which is why all free-to-air channels are given a public service remit as part of their charter... oddly, given the problems that newspapers are having in finding funding, the notion of "public service newspapers" would be a way of securing state subsidies, regulating the nastier press stories, and setting out clearly what is and isn't in the public interest. It would provide for a press regulatory body with teeth, and need not compromise objectivity. The British Government ain't too fond of the BBC, but they still fund it.
Newspapers and news coverage, matters. The Lillis affair has shown, in so many ways, how badly it can malfunction. And yet we shrug our shoulders, mutter about freedom of the press, and assume it has to work this way. It doesn't.
posted by Nyder O'Leary at
19:49
1 Comments:
Don't read, don't tell.
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