The Press we deserve

There was a good article in the Guardian Media supplement on Monday, which I usually throw into the recycle bin unread on account of it being full of self-regarding London-centric Nathan Barley types, but this time I was short of reading material whilst scoffing my tea so I thought I'd have a flick through it. The article [1] was written by Roy Greenslade, editor of the Daily Mirror in the Cap'n Bob Maxwell days, and slated the reactionary, gutter and sewer Press for blatantly racist demonisation of "asylum seekers". Plenty other leftish commentators have done the same, but few with the level of detail and record used by Greenslade, and that can't be brushed off by the Peter Hitchens' and Richard Littlejohns of this world. The article is a condensed version of a publicly-available report [2] which gives a historical overview of Press campaigns against foreigners [3], and makes depressing but necessary reading.

To a large degree, the reactionary Press reflects the pervasive racism endemic in English society, but amplifies it by an order of magnitude, and legitimises anti-refugee racism:

"It is a vicious circle. Public prejudice breeds mythical stories and those mythical stories, having been given credibility by being published, breed yet more prejudice among the public. That process, in which the press both reflects and worsens public attitudes, sets off a chain reaction in which the reflection and the worsening interact until reality is buried under several layers of myth and prejudice."

The scum Press will no doubt justify itself, if or when the accounts come to be settled, on the basis that it only reflects the base racism of the English, but that's a joke. By printing such stories, at best highly distorted versions of reality, more often than not outright and brazen lies, the hacks on the Sun, Express, Star, Mail, to name the most conspicuous offenders (the Mirror isn't entirely innocent, either) bear heavy responsibility for the verbal and physical abuse directed at refugees. The fist may be some knuckledragger's, but the thought was planted, fed and watered by the hacks.

These hacks and propagandists - 'journalist' is too professional a term to apply to them - should be held as much to account as the scumbags who attack refugees, ideally in a manner as direct as their headlines. Chances are they won't be, and will continue to write racist and inflammatory 'stories' and commentaries without any comeback whatsoever. Funny, it was the self-same reactionary Press that so lambasted trades union leaderships in the 70s for exercising "power without responsibility", but for all the righteous criticisms of union barons and executives, in the end they could be held to account by their members. Who's going to force hacks to take responsibility for the pain they cause through their lies? Their proprietors? Their editors? Fat chance - as long as copies shift off the newstands, Murdoch and Rothermere and the rest won't give a toss.

Not that the State should be let off the hook either. It was the Tory regime back in the late 80s that first whipped up the asylum seeker scare, and succeeded in turning the term "asylum seeker" into the modern-day equivalent of "nigger", but NuLabor not only carried the Tories' work on, they positively accelerated the demonisation of foreigners, thus giving the green light to the scum Press, and fascist groups like the BNP, to attack people who've come here in the mistaken belief in the English sense of 'fair play' and 'tolerance'.

In a decade or two, all this fuss about 'asylum seekers' will be just history, and a new group will be scapegoated as blacks and asians and Irish and muslims and refugees have been, but by that time Straw, Blunkett and Blair will be writing their memoirs and cementing reputations as 'respected elder statesmen', whilst the hacks who wrote such reams of poison will be living in comfortable retirement in the country. The pain, the abuse, and the deaths that their words have brought about will be long forgotten.

Refs:

[1] Scapegoats for every ill in society by Roy Greenslade, Guardian Media 31/5/05. Irritatingly, you have to register and fill in a stupid questionnaire to view Media articles so this link won't take you directly to the story, but at least registration is free, although quite what point it serves other than to irritate users unnecessarily I don't know.

[2] Seeking Scapegoats: The coverage of asylum in the UK press. Institute for Public Policy Research, 31/5/05. Available as a PDF document.

[3] Including the Irish, or "Republican terrorist sympathisers" as we used to be known before we became 'cool'.