The lie that just won’t die
Today's Express has a familiar ring about it.
Ah, it's the old "LOADS OF NEW JOBS GOING TO MIGRANTS WURRRGH!" story. A classic of its kind, you have to agree. How many is it this time - 92%? That's a bit more than the Express said a couple of years ago, when it was 85%
or a short while before then, when it was ALL?
- AND THEY GO TO THE FRONT OF THE HOUSING QUEUE, chirped the Express, as if the headline bullshit wasn't enough. That was something that was happily picked up by ugly sister paper the Star, who managed to be somehow even more blunt:
Ah, beautiful. Not just migrants taking ALL jobs, but STEALING them.
Now I am not the expert at statistics - you should mosey over to Five Chinese Crackers and Left Foot Forward to see exactly how these things are being confected and cherrypicked - but my point is on how these things keep popping up, even though the analysis doesn't support the big scary headlines.
You have to wonder why people writing these stories ignore certain factors - coincidentally, all the factors that would make the numbers less scary. As 5cc said of the "85%" story:
People retire. People leave the workforce. Some people who entered the workforce won't be counted because they filled those positions.
In fact, that's one of the main reasons people use for encouraging immigration. There are more people about to reach retirement age in the UK than are old enough to enter the workforce, so we need people to take up the slack. You can disagree with that proposition if you like, but if you use the argument that using immigration to take up the slack is a bad thing because more foreign people will get jobs, you're sailing dangerously close to the bit of the ocean known on the maps as 'Xenophobia'. The one with the dirty great whirlpool in it the sailors call 'Racism'. Arr.
But then some people set a course for those waters, and go there full steam ahead. Deliberately misrepresenting the impact of immigration on the workforce is something that happens again, and again, and again - so frequently that there's a real danger that people might actually start believing it. If people think the 50% that Left Foot Forward claims is a more accurate figure is too much, then fine, by the way (although I'd disagree) - but let's have a proper discussion, without having to resort to scaremongering and distortion. Can we do that?
And now we're at election time, it's no surprise that this old chestnut has come around again - supposedly it's "Labour's employment shame" but really it's a shameful piece of distortion from whoever decided to skew the figures so they made the impact of immigration look greater than it actually is. But then that assumes these people do have a sense of shame. And I really wonder whether they do.
*update* 5cc has dismantled the Express and Mail's Meccano set.
April Fool
Newspapers have always loved April Fool's Day, from back in the days when they were trusted and massively popular, all the way through to today, when they are neither. Now it seems like a bit of a hollow joke. They say: Hey look, here's something we made up that's completely not true! Hee haw! And your first reaction isn't: Wow, that's hilarious, you've really pulled the wool over my eyes this time you cheeky scamps, but Oh, you've made something up. Not really the first time you've done it this year, or month, or week, or even in this issue, is it?
I don't want to sound grumpy, or a killjoy, or a curmudgeon or anything like that; but fuck it, I am. Or rather, that's how I am when it comes to things like this. The only way an April Fool's joke can work is if someone whom you trust does it to you: that's the whole point of it. It has to be someone you believe, rather than imagine is a constant bullshitter.
The April 1st workplace gags from "I'm a alien!" people in Simpsons ties, the "I'm mad,me!" types in the office, don't ever work, because you know they're bound to try something zany on April Fool's Day, so you're always waiting for it. With newspapers it's different. You don't have an expectation they'll joke with you; you have an expectation they tell all sorts of porkies all the time. Oh, here comes another one. Oh, they've admitted this one isn't real. Yeah, ho ho. If a newspaper worked at your office, it wouldn't be the bloke in the bow tie and the comedy glasses - it'd be that guy stinking of booze that's always turning up late, telling you that his grandmother's just died, or that he trod on a plug and had to go to Casualty, or that he didn't realise you meant today when you said the deadline was today, and that he didn't mean it this time, he'll get it done properly next time... the kind of flaky, marginal character who always seems to avoid being sacked, despite being irretrievably unreliable.
The sad thing is - and I do think it's a genuinely sad thing - that we just don't trust our newspapers any more. Just as we don't trust our politicians, or our estate agents, or lawyers. We've been turned over too many times to keep popping our heads up like Whac-a-moles thinking we won't get bumped on the head with a big sponge hammer. We know what to expect. You might argue - with some justification - that newspapers have always been casually derided as 'tomorrow's chip paper', but I do think there was a time when millions of people would turn to them as a source of information. I don't think we do any more, or at least I don't think we do with such certainty. It's gone beyond the stage of trust having broken down; it's at the point where you just don't know what to believe, and what you read in the paper is just one of many potentially slippery competing sources with agendas that you have to try and unravel. Maybe it was always like that, but it was harder to see because you couldn't check for yourself via the web. Maybe in that sense, our fun has been spoiled.
When you see a front page like this, for example
the immediate reaction isn't: Wow, that must all be true, amazing! But it's also not: That's all such bollocks it must be April Fool jokes, they can't be serious! It's the more wearily pragmatic: Oh. Here we go again. And we do. Snow chaos, some rubbish about ageing, and the great-grandmother we met yesterday who was fined in Bonkers Britain for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal selling a goldfish to some 14-year-old kid who looked about 85, apparently.
The goldfish granny is a perfect modern newspaper tale: it's telling you what they think you want to hear - that Britain is bonkers and all kinds of things, like health and safety and political correctness have gone mad - while obscuring the details that reveal that perhaps Britain isn't as bonkers as you might fear. The animal cruelty charge gets buried, because it's not a story if it's about that. All the mitigation from the convicted person - who pleaded guilty to the charges, let's please remember - is repeated as if it's factual. I wonder if they'd do the same if it was some young kid who pleaded guilty to committing a crime of violence? I'm guessing not.
Animal cruelty is a serious enough business - more serious, you could argue, than selling booze or fags or mucky vids to teenagers, and therefore something that Trading Standards should be clamping down on. But no, apparently the fact that someone has admitted an offence, been fined, said they couldn't afford the fine and has therefore been electronically tagged, is something that 'shames Britain'. Is it all right to commit a crime, then, if you're an elderly lady? Shall we just not bother prosecuting anyone who likes a bit of bingo? Shall we just give up then, and let them do everything they want, because they're old?
And when the Express says FREE HER NOW, it's not joking. This is April 1, but it's deadly serious. If people admit animal cruelty, and they're from a certain 'good' demographic, they should be let off, it says. But I remember when a couple of Romanian immigrants admitted the offence of criminal damage the other week, and the same newspaper roared and roared that they should be deported and shouldn't be receiving benefits, then said they'd STOLEN A MAN'S HOME when they hadn't. I guess they're just the 'bad' demographic, who shouldn't have anything excused, who we don't mind a pack of lies being told about.
Some offences get hidden when it suits the papers; others get magnified and exaggerated. And it seems to depend what kind of background you have, whether you're an immigrant or not. Maybe I'm losing my sense of humour, but I don't find that funny at all. Who, then, are the April Fools? The newspapers, for publishing this kind of crap, or us for reading it, and sometimes believing it?
The Poles are back
I see that Poles are back again on top of the tabloid hate pyramid. It's been a while since the Mail and Express decided that demonising our friends in Eastern Europe was a good idea, but all of a sudden, it's started again. Things had gone quiet, but we're back to the spectral Poles, coming over here and draining our benefits.
I noticed down the side of yesterday's Express front page (in which Princess Diana also made a welcome return) some guff about "You can only have a job if you're Polish", which must have garnered plenty of attention - probably traffic from Stormfront and BNP forums, the core demographic - because the Poles are right back on the front page again today:
In all the excitement about NOW POLES GET FREE ABORTIONS ON NHS, it's possible to imagine that this will be a story that launches a thorough investigation into what's going on, the reasons behind it, and so on. But don't worry if you thought that was going to happen. This isn't about what could have been an interesting story regarding women from the former A8 European nations flying to Britain to have abortions because their home countries won't allow it - a practice which has gone on for quite a few years with women from Ireland. Never mind that shit! Here comes the scare!
POSTERS advising Polish women to fly to Britain for free abortions on the NHS sparked outrage yesterday.
The advert – which borrows tastelessly from a famous “Priceless” credit card campaign – is promoted by a Polish feminist group. It was condemned last night for encouraging “abortion tourism”, and piling pressure on the hard-pressed NHS.
They urge women to take advantage of EU rules allowing Poles free medical care in the UK.
And it tells them it is cheaper to fly to the UK to end an unwanted pregnancy than to pay for an illegal backstreet termination in Poland.
It's a bit pathetic really. Instead of a story showing that women are coming from Poland to the UK for abortions because of the cheap air fares - which I don't doubt probably goes on - the only evidence is a poster from a Polish feminist group. As well as that you've got a 'critics' and a 'source' coming up, plus a MigrationWatch quote - which in my book counts as no sources of any real quality troubling the scorers and stacking up this story.
Critics:
Critics warn that Britain is at risk of becoming the abortion capital of Europe.
Where's the evidence to back that up? Oh, there isn't anything, no quote from anyone. So who are the critics who said this? It's probably wrong in some way for me to suppose that the reporter did a frantic ring-around of the most anti-abortion rent-a-gobs they could find, and couldn't get someone to say that, but put it in the story anyway. Probably very wrong of me to suspect that. But I'd be grateful if you did bear in mind, whenever anyone tells you that the difference between blogging and real journalism is that journalists have to use sources and stand up everything they say, that it's total shit.
Source:
A Polish source said yesterday that thousands of Polish women already flee the strict Roman Catholic country’s anti-abortion laws every year to undergo the procedure on the NHS.
Who's this Polish source then? Again, it would probably be wrong of me, for some reason, to think that there either isn't one, or it's just some anecdotal evidence from someone the reporter has spoken to, rather than anyone who actually knows what's going on or who has any evidence. Again, as I said, I don't doubt this goes on; but that's not the same as being able to stand it up using facts and stuff rather than "a Polish source".
MigrationWatch:
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of think tank MigrationWatch, said: “We should insist the Polish government take action to have these posters removed.” He said the NHS was in danger of becoming an “international health service” and called for NHS clinics to make sure that those who turn up for free treatment are entitled to it.
You may remember from the other day that in my book MigrationWatch is a wanktank, not a thinktank, as the word thinktank not only implies that some thinking actually goes on, but also lends a sliver of credence to the views of these people that makes them out to be more than just a pressure group complaining about every single immigration issue that ever gets raised. Which is fine, and don't get me wrong, there's a place for that. But please. Pressure group, not 'thinktank'. Let's be honest about this.
Also, that quote from Sir Andrew is a good reminder of the kind of people you're dealing with. Here's someone who wants state intervention to prevent free speech from a group of feminists in Poland. I'm sure if a Polish 'thinktank' demanded that Sir Andrew be prevented from communicating his anti-immigration rubbish in Britain, he'd be equally delighted. No, you say...?
It's sad to see Poles back in the newspapers like this. I had kind of hoped that the demonisation of them, and other Europeans, might have come to something of a halt of late. But no. Whether this new injection of suspicion is anything to do with the coming election, I don't know, but I wouldn't fall off my chair if it was. Still, when you have 'critics' and 'sources' and MigrationWatch to help you, you can pretty much create a story out of thin air. So there will be more... there will be more.
Bogus bogeyman bingo
There's a scene in a Simpsons episode that I sometimes like to remember. It's the one where Bart realises that Sideshow Bob is going to blow up Selma after she lights her post-MacGuyver cigarette, having filled the room with gas - knowing she has no sense of smell after a freak rocket-bottle accident - and he has to try and convey this information to Homer before it's too late.
"When Aunt Selma lights her cigarette, she'll be blown to kingdom come!"
"Come again"?
Bart lights the stove. Homer doesn't understand. Bart makes Homer read 'Science Made Very Simple To Understand'. Homer doesn't understand. Bart draws a picture of an explosion with the word BOOM! in capital letters. Homer doesn't understand. Bart puts on a puppet show about things exploding. Homer doesn't understand. Finally, Bart tells Marge.
Now I'm not saying that Express readers' understanding of immigration and benefits is like Homer's understanding of how things explode. But that's certainly the level of understanding that the writers of articles in the Express pitch towards their readers. As ever, it's not really me who holds Daily Express readers in contempt; I could never have as much hatred for them as the Daily Express does.
And so, like David Bowie always crashing in the same car, we arrive at the scene of the same accident we have every day, in the same place, and we discover today's front page.
The construction of this story is slightly less barking than most; it's quite elegantly put together, really. Don't get me wrong, it's a woven turd rather than a Faberge egg, but you've still got to admire elements of it. There are quite a few hot buttons being pressed. Come with me now, and play "Daily Express bogus bogeyman bingo":
MEDDLING EU judges sparked outrage last night after giving scrounging foreigners the green light to sponge thousands of pounds from British taxpayers.
In a blow to millions of hard-working Britons, immigrants will now be entitled to claim rent, income support, council tax and a host of other benefits simply if their children go to school in the UK.
Meddling EU judges? Kerching! Outrage? Kerching! Scrounging foreigners? Kerching! Sponge thousands of pounds? Kerching! British taxpayers? Kerching! Immigrants claiming benefits? Hard-working Britons? Raping our children in the eye*? Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding! Yay, we win the fucking jackpot!
Sure, it's a crock, but I do admire the brio and style with which it's been carried out. This is the point where, presumably, we have to turn into Bart, try and sit down with our Express reader and draw simple diagrams and do puppet shows to try and explain to them how benefits work, and how not everyone who claims them is a sponger. For the "outrage" comes, as it so frequently does, from the fact that people might get out more money than they put in. Yes... and... well, that's it. Non-working immigrant parents may get benefits because they have children at school in Britain. Er, OK. But so do non-working non-immigrant parents, don't they? Yes, but there appears to be a lot less outrage about that.
Benefits are a bit like that. You don't always get out what you put in. It's not like National Insurance and tax is some kind of big shiny bank where you're only entitled to withdraw what you put in. It might be some people's dream that it would be, but it's not. We don't call children 'spongers' because they haven't paid the tax that is going to fund their education, healthcare and everything else, do we? That would be foolish. And yet, I can't help wondering if there's something about the word 'sponger' in this context. Haven't I seen it somewhere before?
Ah yes, there's one example from the archives. 'Spongeing asylum seekers'. That would be 'asylum seekers who are not allowed to work and who must therefore depend on benefits', if you want to put it that way; but silly me, it's probably easier for the sake of clarity to just use the word 'spongeing', isn't it? I mean, if it's unlawful for you to work and pay tax, and you must therefore depend on benefits while your asylum case is sorted out, you're spongeing, aren't you? Aren't you?
They will be able to claim the cash even if they don’t have a job, UK citizenship or any genuine claim to live in this country.
Critics fear the landmark ruling will open the “floodgates” to a wave of foreigners seeking state support from Britain with no intention of putting anything back into the country.
Yeah, floodgates. Why not just say "Wurrrrrrrrrrrrgh!" and be done with it? You're probably guessing there's a quote in there from the Tax Payers' Alliance, and indeed there is. You also may be wondering what you have to do in order to qualify for these benefits... well it's very simple:
Mrs Ibrahim arrived in the UK in 2003 to join her husband, named in court as Mr Yusuf. As a Danish national, he counted as a “migrant worker” from another EU country, with UK residency rights. This also applied to his wife.
The couple have four children of Danish nationality, aged 12, 10, eight and four. After working in the UK for five months, Mr Yusuf claimed incapacity benefit, and left the UK after being declared fit for work in March 2004.
He then “ceased to satisfy the conditions for lawful residence” in the UK. Ms Ibrahim’s application for housing assistance was rejected by Harrow on the grounds that only people with a right of residence under EU law could apply.
But yesterday’s EU ruling said: “A parent caring for the child of a migrant worker who is in education in the host Member State has a right of residence in that State. That right is not conditional on the parent having sufficient resources not to become a burden on the social assistance system.”
Oh, I see, well that's a piece of piss, isn't it? I imagine lots of spouses of immigrant workers who pay tax over here and then go on to leave the country will sneakily enrol their children into school in the meantime, just to get the handouts for when they split up. I'm sure that's going to happen literally millions of times.
* All right, I made this one up.
Is being anti-immigration racist?
You might think the straightforward answer would be "Sometimes", or even "Frequently", or you could even opt for the slightly more complicated "There may be concerns about the impact of immigration upon public services and the ability of the state to deal with an increasing population in general, but the fact that these concerns exist doesn't necessarily mean they are legitimate; and nor does it mean that these concerns are not frequently used as a mask for racists to hide behind, shielding their inherent prejudice from view."
You might, but we're told today that the Government believed everyone - that's everyone - who complains about immigration was racist. If the source of this information came from anyone except MigrationWatch, you might be tempted to think: "Cor, that's a bit dumb of them. Surely they're a bit more sensible than that?" But this story did originally come from MigrationWatch, and this is part two of an actually-rather-feeble-but-presses-the-right-buttons-so-given-far-more-column-inches-than-they-should-be series of ''revelations' about the Government's immigration policy. Go and read Five Chinese Crackers, if you haven't already, for a good summary of part one.
Part two, then, was what was behind my silliness earlier today, with that front-page headline in the Daily Express, which really went like this:
At which point I'll say what I didn't have time to earlier, namely: don't include me in your we, Daily Express. It's a clever enough bit of phrasing, which immediately gets the anger juices flowing. The dialogue between the Express and its reader might go something like this:
Labour says you're a racist!
Who, me?
Yes you! You! Labour says you're a racist. Just because you read the Express and want to close the borders, and send them ba... er, not that bit, obviously, but you get the general idea.
I'm very angry all of a sudden.
Don't worry, we can help you get more angry. They've got a secret plan to flood the country with immigrants, just because they think it's a good idea, or something, and they think that if you complain about that, you're a racist!
A secret plan? Really?
Well, since you ask, no, not a secret plan at all. There are some vague mentions of 'social objectives' and 'wider economic benefits', which, if you interpreted them in the way that MigrationWatch have, means Labour secretly trying to enforce multiculturalism on whitey. But that's quite a leap and there appears to be very little evidence for that. Hang on a minute, I appear to be actually giving a shit about what's accurate. I must have stopped being a Daily Express journalist all of a sudden.
Now I'm confused, and a little frightened.
It's OK, we'll get through this. How about we watch a Black & White Minstrel Show episode together. That's not racist either. It's just good old-fashioned family fun, and if the PC Brigade want to call it racist, then they're wrong as wrong can be.
OK, but don't touch me again. Promise me you won't.
I may be embellishing a bit, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what happens. The thing is, the justification for this latest story is even flimsier. It's 'secret' because it was never published. Well there are a couple of ways to look at this* - you could say it wasn't included because it's a big secret, and it was all a massive plot by Labour. Or you could say it wasn't included because it was rejected. Which one do you think the Mail and Express have gone for? Here's the Mail:
The thinking on immigration among Labour leaders was set down in 2000 in a document prepared for the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, but the key passages were suppressed before it was published.
The paper was finally disclosed under freedom of information rules yesterday. It showed that ministers were advised that only the ill-educated and those who had never met a migrant were opposed to immigration.
They were also told that large-scale immigration would bring increases in crime, but they concealed these concerns from the public.
Can you imagine a world in which all Daily Mail stories had to be released in their original form, before they were edited? Pure, unadulterated Littlejohn and Moir. I mean, look at what actually makes it through. Do you think they might contain things that could be considered mistakes, or which were rejected? Would you consider it 'secret' or 'suppressing' or 'concealing' that we don't get to see that? Or do you just think some kind of editorial process took place? Can't Governments do the same thing - editing what finally gets published? (You should see some of my blog posts that never made it - dreadful. You may reply "Well it would be hard to tell, lol!" and then I'd cry.)
So is this really suppressing the truth? Or is it something else? Did 'the Government' really think that everyone who disagreed with immigration was racist, or was the phrasing a bit more nuanced than that? Was it someone else who drafted the document, which was then rejected? Was it all a secret Labour plot to flood the country with immigrants because they thought they'd all magically vote Labour? Was something else going on? We don't know for sure, but one thing is for sure - we won't find out the truth from reading the Mail or Express. We need the original source material so we can decide for ourselves.
* And it's hard to tell for sure without the original document, which I haven't got access to myself - if any of you can tell me where to find it then that'd be skill. For some reason - and call me a big cynic - I'm not too sure if MigrationWatch's view of this reflects the entire reality. I can't even find the press release for this on the MigrationWatch website.
Funny kind of VIP club
Ah, the Daily Express. You appear in this blog with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season. And you're off on one about immigration, as usual:
Sounds nice, doesn't it? A VIP club? Tell me more:
UK-BOUND migrants were yesterday massing in their own comfy members-only club in Calais before making their bid for Britain, the Daily Express can reveal.
French charities have helped to create a virtual “departure lounge” for illegal immigrants heading across the Channel, offering them rest and recreation before they complete the final leg of their journeys.
How delightful! The Express claims to have seen photos of this VIP departure lounge and mentions a piano, cinema and sports hall. Plush! They say:
Our investigators gained access to the illegal “Sangatte II” centre and exclusive photographs show it bears a closer resemblance to a holiday camp than a shelter for the homeless.
Where are these photos showing how delightful it is, then? Oddly enough they appear not to have been put online - maybe they were in the original paper, to which I don't have access. But if you read the No Borders Brighton blog's excellent rebuttal of the Express article, and this other article by them, as well as this by Calais Solidarity - dismissed as 'left-wing activists' by the Express - you might be forgiven for doing a bit of a double-take. Because here's what it looks like:
Does that look like much of a holiday camp to you? As the Brighton No Borders blog says:
"Comfy members-only club" makes it sound like the Athenaeum or something. It a freezing cold industrial hanger with concrete floors and a couple of thin walled bottom of the line Wendy house-style tents with small electric heaters inside to make it seem at least partially comfortable if one chooses to sit down on one of the rickety chairs.
That doesn't sound like the same place at all, does it?
And where are these "exclusive photographs" that are supposed to show all this then? Certainly not in the article. The one used in the article is taken at the old feeding station that hasn't been in use since before last summer. The plain fact is that the press are allowed in the hanger by invite only and nobody from the Express or any other newspaper would be allowed to take photographs while the hanger was in use.
"One observer said: “They are being treated like VIPs.”" So that wouldn't be one of your investigators then that supposedly made it inside. And which VIPs would that be Peter? Certainly not any on this planet.
... Fucking hell, you make it sound like the Ritz Pete. It's a hanger. It has not been converted into anything. There is one small office built onto the back wall of the hanger, just like in any old garage or small warehouse building, with enough room for a desk and a filing cabinet. Where do the "relaxation rooms...cinema and sports hall" come into it? Again, you have must have been inside a completely different building. Or maybe you are just plainly lying...
No matter for the Express, though. All their readers know is that it's a VIP club, that it's comfy, and it's got a piano. And there are angry quotes from UKIP and the Tax Payers' Alliance to ensure that they get the message. Shame there wasn't enough room for a decent quote explaining the reality of the hangar from those who are running it, really. But then where's the fun in that?
You’re in our country…
Ah yes. This tweet from @badjournalism links to one of those rather nasty Facebook groups that have sprouted up like smelly mushrooms all over the place. It's called - and I think the capital letters are important - YOU'RE IN OUR COUNTRY SO SPEAK OUR F*CKING LANGUAGE. You know the kind of thing. Sometimes you see people you vaguely know - wives of second cousins, or people who know someone you used to work with, whom you met once at a party and thought were vaguely humorous - joining these groups, and you think, Jesus, really?
It's the age-old 'them and us' terminology. "You're" in "our" country... I wonder if these are the kind of folk who would follow through this logic to its natural conclusion - speaking Welsh if they ever popped over to Cardiff, for example, or learning any Spanish other than DOSS KERVEZZOS MATE when on holiday in Eye-beef-ah - or whether they'd just carry on blaring away in English as loudly as possible, getting more and more irate with someone who didn't understand every thundering word of Essex-twanged* English?
You can link it with the idea people have that the English are somehow some kind of pure-bred race, the so-called 'indigenous' population. English is a mongrel language, ever-changing and adapting, which is what makes it so successful. I'd argue that's what makes Britain, or England, so successful also: the ability to absorb and incorporate other languages, and other cultures.
Like immigrants entering the country, loan-words enter the language, and become a great success. Do the members of this Facebook group never talk about bungalows, chutney, ginger or kebabs? Or do they use those words and have no idea where they might come from? Or don't they care? Maybe it's a "some of my favourite words come from abroad" kind of an attitude; I don't know.
The country belongs to everyone, as far as I'm concerned. It's no more 'mine' than it is anyone else's. And as far as words go, the more new ones that arrive, the greater our beautiful language will be enriched. You're in our country, do what you bloody well like. Just make sure you don't spend too much time reading the rubbish written by the twats on that Facebook group, or you'll get the wrong idea about English people.
* I've got nothing against the fine people of Essex. It's just an example. Although I did once have an unpleasant evening in Hornchurch. Not that anyone's ever had a good one, I'll wager.
It’s not about the truth
You have probably read by now the tale of Sue Reid's appallingly misleading and woefully inaccurate story regarding births at a London hospital. Tim at Mailwatch offers a letter to Daily Mail readers while 5cc does an excellent demolition job, and Uponnothing says Paul Dacre must die.
Reid, of course, has previous. Back in 2007 she offered money to Polish people to break the law, so she could write a story about Polish people breaking the law. The knowledge that a journalist could stoop so low didn't stop newspapers from publishing her articles, of course. Perhaps it was with a teenager's 'meh' shrug or a thought of 'There but for the grace of God...' that potential publishers looked the other way and pretended they hadn't seen anything wrong. This isn't about Reid, though, and it would be wrong to demonise one journalist. It's not the writers who decide what goes in the paper - those decisions are made above their pay grade.
But it's not about the truth. Journalism, at the level of the tabloids and even the 'quality press' from time to time, is about finding a convincing 'line'. If you can find a way of portraying a version of the truth in which a London hospital is swamped by foreigners and no British mums are giving birth there, and that chimes in with a newspaper's record of reporting immigration as a scary, overwhelming thing that's out of control, then that will do. But is it true? I doubt anyone even asked. It doesn't matter.
It's not about the truth. It's about a version of the truth that you can stack up for a few paragraphs, maybe with a supporting quote from someone who'll definitely agree with you (and that tedious business of getting a 'response', yawn yawn, which might contradict your story altogether but which you shove right at the end in the hope your readers won't get that far and will be convinced that what you've told them is what's actually the case.) In the case of the Sue Reid story, the response from the hospital is, I'd have thought, rather more important than something that should be bolted on to the end. Because it kind of contradicts quite a lot of what has been previously stated as a fact.
But no. It's not about the truth, or balance, or fairness, or accuracy. It's not about representing things as accurately as you can. It's about dancing around all of that to make your line as impactful as possible. Yes, you must try to get a response from people about whom you tell a pack of lies, so they've had a 'right of reply' - and if it appears to torpedo what you've written so far? Ah well. Just bung it on at the end and leave everything you've written intact.
It's never about the truth, and it's not quite about fiction. It's about painting the ghost-train so it scares you the most. It's about representing a version of reality in which your worst fears come true - in the case of the Daily Mail, it would appear to have decided that its readers' worst fears consist of immigrants and foreign people. I don't know what that says about Mail readers - I'm not so sure the readers are really that venomous, despite what you reader underneath stories sometimes - or about the paper itself.
If we assume that it's not trying to tell the truth - a simple FOI request to find out numbers would have provided more accuracy as would listening to what the hospital had to say and putting it in context rather than shoving it at the end of the story - then what is it trying to do? Is it trying to mislead, or scare, or enrage, or what? I think the answer might be that it is trying to tap into people's fears. In the case of its readers, it assumes they are afraid of foreigners and immigrants and so creates a world in which foreigners and immigrants are taking over, everyone is powerless to stop it because of the spectral PC Brigade, and guess who's paying?
I think it also assumes they're afraid of cancer, women having jobs, gay people adopting, technology, the internet, socialism, taxes and a whole host of bogeymen - though foreigners and immigration are pretty high up the list. I don't know if it's right, but I think that's what it's trying to do. If you like, you can look at the Mail as a kind of voluntary participation in Room 101 - all the things you fear are in there. Maybe people read it for the same reason they step into the ghost train or ride the rollercoaster or watch a horror movie - you can be confronted with your fears, and see them off, and then return to normal life. That is, if you understand you're being misled and suspending your disbelief.
What if people really believe it? What then?
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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