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REVIEWS: THE MEDIA OF THE REPUBLIC
A SUBVERSIVE INSTITUTION
by Tony Abbott
The Adelaide Review, May 1999
Can media pressure destroy individuals and tear down societies? This author thinks it can. Not only did journalists hound Princess Diana to her death, he says, but they did so because they adhere to a doctrine he calls ‘theoretic-republicanism’, a species of philosophic rationalism opposed to all forms of traditional authority and moral standards.
There are two problems with the argument as it is developed here: first, even if correct, the author fails to explain what can be done to tackle the media threat. He’s like the earnest activist who carefully explains the devastation nuclear weapons can wreak bur not how to live with something which cannot be uninvented. Second, even if his critique of the media's treatment of Diana is right, it does not necessarily sustain his philosophical analysis. As an explanation, stuff-up beats conspiracy in this as in so much else.
Despite these flaws, for students of the media and the monarchy the book is well worth reading. There's no doubt that the media's treatment of the royal family (and the monarchy generally) has been shallow, sneering and self-serving. Many journalists have cause to be ashamed of their coverage of matters royal. The author's textual criticism is no less persuasive for the smouldering rage with which it is delivered. He describes the media’s anti-Diana (and anti-Charles) campaigns with the righteous fury others have shown in chronicling Ken Starr’s pursuit of Bill Clinton.
A notable absence, however, is any deep understanding of the internal dynamic of journalists or journalism. This may or may not be surprising. Gerard Charles’ back-ground or qualifications are not mentioned anywhere in this quite handsomely presented and heavily endnoted book. A publisher's letter says that he:
... has combined extensive experience in book publishing with a masters degree in political philosophy.
Plainly, he has a well-stocked mind and a fluent literary style. But he has managed to escape from the newsroom (if, indeed, he ever entered one) uncontaminated by the general cynicism and also, he seems unconscious of the essential anarchy of the journalistic ethos.
Charles uses The Australian’s coverage of the royal family to illustrate and exemplify his thesis. Every throw-away line, cheap shot, non-sequitur, and ‘sources close to this typewriter’ piece of pseudo-reportage in the wall-to-wall coverage of the week between Diana’s death and funeral is exhaustively analysed. There is much to justify his criticism (in The Australian as elsewhere) – but much less to support his broader thesis of a conscious conspiracy to destroy the monarchy as an institution.
For one thing, neither The Australian (nor any other major paper) has an ‘editorial board’ to act as ‘thought police’. Mostly, there is a daily editorial conference, usually attended by senior writers of widely varying philosophical pre-dispositions (none of whom are exactly blushing wall-flowers when it comes to expressing a contrary view) which influences the content of the editorial-of-the-day only. Then there are two daily news conferences, where stories, op-ed pieces and ‘angles’ are discussed.
Editors have about as much control over the way stories are written as hospital bosses have over the conduct of particular surgical operations. As the Kelvin McKenzie-type put it in an episode of ‘Yes Minister’, editors are not so much generals in an army as ringmasters in a circus: they can book the acrobats but they can’t tell them which way to jump. Apart from approving the appointment of editors-in-chief, Rupert Murdoch plays no role whatsoever in any of it.
To the extent that the media has a collective mindset, it’s what sells papers (or boosts ratings). If the media exhibits an excitement for the new over the old, change over stability and chaos over order, that is generally because ‘nothing’s happening today’ is not a story. As Walter Cronkite supposedly said: news is not good news unless it’s really bad news in disguise. The media is a profoundly subversive institution, not because journalists are all disciples of Marx, but because the ebb and now of events and ideas is always shaking our faith. It is also a necessary institution because we grow and evolve in response to the challenges of the times.
In its ferocious pursuit of the royals, the media has failed the test of ordinary decency rather than succeeded in a diabolical master plan. Yes, consumers have a right to know about the failings of public figures—but only to the extent that these impact on their fitness for office. Senior journalists would understandably cry foul should anyone publicise their sexual adventures, financial dealings, and personal quirks. As a class, they have done to others what they would never have done to them. They have been guilty of hypocrisy and self-righteousness more often than ideological malice. By and large, journalists eschew ideology. Instead, they have a tendency to turn public life into a series of morality plays with particular individuals and institutions typecast as bad guys.
If journalists were just the 'stalkerazzi' of Gerard Charles' demonology, almost no one would buy papers. In fact, the media's harshest critics are invariably the most hooked; sometimes, to be sure, out of public duty but, no less often perhaps, to see who gets flayed next. The fact that there is a ready market for prurience masquerading as news does not excuse the media’s ‘publish and be damned’ approach. But if, as Charles insists, the forces of self-destruction are abroad, the contagion is certainly not confined to journalists.
The age is dominated by the question: what’s in it for me? Why should I surrender my judgement to anyone else’s? Why should I value anything which has no immediate use? Where Western culture is concerned (although not third world culture or the physical environment) the idea that we have a responsibility to introduce our grandchildren to the patrimony of our grandfathers is deeply uncongenial. In common with all other institutions, the monarchy’s problem is that it has been stripped of the benefit of the doubt. For this, the fault lies not in our journalists but in ourselves.
Charles’ book would be much more effective as an argument if he had criticised the media for failing to uphold its own standards rather than for matching to the beat of an alien and dangerous drum. But conspiracy theories can help market books just as effectively as royal scandals can help sell papers. Perhaps Messrs Murdoch and Charles have that much in common.
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