The problem with contaminated lamb is that it can spread a contagion far beyond the sports desk.
Regular readers will have no difficulty in believing that PR pish is obediently regurgitated on the back page of the Daily Radar on a regular basis.
Famously in November 2010 that tabloid’s award-winning chap breathlessly gushed a world exclusive about a chap called Craig Whyte.
He was a Bear, a billionaire, indeed his wealth “was off the radar”…
It was a trousers at the ankles outburst that has haunted Mr Jackson ever since.
When it transpired that…gasp…Mr Whyte was not dripping in wealth the Daily Record chap bleated that they had been “told to call him a billionaire”.
At the time the last owner of Rangers before they died had a PR company working for him in Scotland.
It was a two-man operation and I spoke to one of them on the phone in early 2011.
That was just after the bank had handed Craigie Boy the keys to the Big House.
He told me that he was worried about my reportage on his client.
I countered by telling him that I just wanted to print the truth and that I didn’t think his client was a billionaire.
The line went dead…
It was in 2014 in the Guardian media column that Professor Roy Greenslade deployed the term “stenographers” to describe the chaps on the Daily Record Sports Desk.
Sometimes journalists are told by their editors to slant a story in a certain direction.
That is perfectly fine and the responsibility for that is the with those in leadership positions within the newspaper.
However, when PR companies are directing journalists then a line has been crossed and what the title is putting out is no longer journalism.
It is naïve to have such a situation within a newspaper and think that it will not spread to other sections within the title.
Therefore, the tale of Anthony Fletcher and the Daily Radar shouldn’t surprise us.
What is also worth noting is the role of the Fifth Estate in this matter and the important intervention of the Commonspace.
You can read about it here.
The take way from this is that if the mainstream media become merely obedient stenographers for PR companies then it is for others to step up and serve the Public Interest.
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