PCC & Jan Moir: business as usual?

18Feb/1020

PCC & Jan Moir: business as usual?

There will be those, in the wake of the PCC's breezy rejection of 25,000 complaints about Jan Moir's despicable article about Stephen Gately, who think this is some kind of triumph for free speech, and a crushing defeat for the evil Twitter Mob. But that's missing the point entirely.

I don't think most of the thousands who complained about the pitifully nasty column did so in order to clamp down on the freedom of expression so enjoyed by Her Majesty's Press in this country. They didn't do so deliberately, and they didn't do so accidentally, not realising what they were doing, either. I think they were just exercising their own freedom of expression - to say they felt this article had offended them, and that it was patently horrible. Which it was.

We do have self-regulation of the press in this country, and it's right that people may use that route to challenge articles in the press they feel have broken the rules. We can argue about how many teeth the PCC really has, and whether it really wants to use them; and we can speculate, though we'll never really know, that it appears to be a cargo-cult construction that whirrs through the motions in order to produce a verisimilitude of regulation, while simultaneously never giving anything much more than a stinging slap on the wrist to the very worst transgressors. We could point out that it's powerless to punish, even when an offender has stepped right over the line, pulled down its pants and waved its hairy bum in the regulators' faces.

No matter. The PCC exists, and it's not an attack on the freedom of expression for people to choose to use that route to voice their displeasure over what's been written in the press. You could even argue - and call me naive if you want to - that that's precisely what it was established to do in the first place. (Or at the very least, to look like it was established to do. You could say, looking at this article by Malcolm Coles for example, that the PCC appears in this instance to have made a rather bizarre decision, but we can argue about that too.) If you feel that thousands of people complaining to the PCC was an attack on free speech, then by all means call for the dismantling of the PCC itself. Self-regulation is, after all, self-censorship, of a kind. To hell with anyone who has a complaint about what's been in the papers! Free speech trumps everything!

Or... maybe it's a bit more complicated than that. Perhaps there are occasions when free speech doesn't beat everything else. Perhaps there are times when the press - or ordinary citizens who happen not to work for the press - shouldn't say everything they want to say. We can argue about that too. But let's not pretend, as some will, that the Jan Moir affair was an attack on free speech, and that the PCC have bravely defended it. Because that's certainly not what it was.

As a fully paid-up member of the Twitter Mob, I am of course a bloodthirsty idiot who has a pitchfork and flaming torch kept in a steel box by the side of my computer - I simply break the glass in the event of being mildly offended by something. I am just a numbskull, unable to think for myself, an electronic sheep who needs to be whipped up into a frenzy of outrage by those meddlesome troublemongers Fry, Linehan et al. I am but a mere pawn in their empire-building game, taking power away from the responsible journalists who look after it so well and handing it over to the sans-culottes of the so-called Twitterati, who will only break it or something, and who can't really be trusted. And look, they will say, for all the huffing and puffing of people on Twitter, they failed in what they set out to do. It's good for getting people worked up, they will tell you, but not for getting things done.

Or you could look at it another way. You could say that until something as instant as Twitter arrived, it was hard to register the retching disgust at reading something as unpleasant as Moir's vile dribbling, and that it happened to be an efficient medium to express and channel this legitimate anger and frustration with the mainstream media. The protest failed to get Moir the sack, and failed to get the PCC to accept that a transgression had taken place, because this was never going to happen, but maybe that wasn't the point. Was it pointless to protest against the Iraq War, if it then took place? Is there no point in protesting about anything, if you aren't listened to the first time? Protest and dissent isn't a matter of getting your message across and then, because you're right, achieving all your goals and getting home before teatime. Protesting about things is quite often a matter of frustration, of meeting resistance, of those who have the power pulling up the drawbridge and hoping you'll go away. The Twitter anger over Jan Moir wasn't trying to break down the door. It was just politely knocking to let those inside know there was someone outside. These things take time.

The history of these things is already being written. Some will say this result just goes to prove that there's no value in Twitter, or in people other than the clever journalists being allowed to think about things, because the rest of us are silly billies who should just stick our thumbs in our mouths and let the big boys tell us what to think and how to think it. They're wrong. The anger over the Moir column was righteous, and right. Reading it even now still makes me angry. It was right to be angry about it. It's important to let people who have a million readers know that they need to be careful about what they say, because they may well upset a lot of people if they get it wrong, and that doesn't in any way clamp down on freedom of speech.

There are more voices out there now. Time was when it was a one-way conversation between our masters in the Fourth Estate and the rest of us; they shouted and we had to listen. Now, we can shout back, if we like. More voices means more freedom of expression, and more freedom of speech. If the press choose to have self-regulation - and they do - then they should be prepared for the public to call them out when they get things horribly wrong. Perhaps this ruling just shows how irrelevant and pointless the PCC really is. Perhaps it shows that it was never going to give the answers that people wanted. Perhaps the PCC may listen to the consultation with the public it recently opened up, or it may simply shake its head and say, No, we don't want your input, but thanks all the same. In which case, it's not regulation at all, merely a pretence of regulation.

And have we really changed anything, those of us who complained, who tweeted, who wrote annoying blog posts about the Jan Moir saga? Perhaps changing anything wasn't the point. Perhaps by protesting, by announcing we were there at all, that was an achievement in itself. You can be sure that many journalists will simply turn away as if nothing happened; they will write valedictory columns about Moir and doing down the protesters, as Stephen Glover already did some time ago - at a time, incidentally, when the Daily Mail officially said it couldn't comment on the matter because it was waiting for the PCC adjudication.

But I think they would be wrong to do so. This was just a first skirmish. I've said before the tide was coming in - and got roundly slapped round the chops by a crusty old newspaper columnist, in a badly written and poorly researched piece that didn't do him any favours, for doing so, which if anything confirmed my suspicions. I think that kind of recalcitrance indicates something beyond mere contempt for us, the great unwashed, daring to speak out for ourselves on the issues we want to talk about rather than leaving it to our beloved journalists to do it for us, important and vital though real quality journalism is. I think it indicates fear that the tide really is coming in.

This, then, was just the beginning. It may be business as usual, for now, but things are changing. We are on the horizon. Not a mob. Just people, who don't want to be quiet any more.

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Tagged as: Jan Moir, PCC, scum columnists Leave a comment

Comments (20) Trackbacks (4) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

electroweb
February 18th, 2010 - 07:57

The PCC ruling feels right to me: she didn’t say anything illegal. But aren’t they also supposed to rule on gross offense, vindictiveness and innuendo? And should the columnist who cause the biggest outrage in PCC history still be in her job?

( REPLY )
George W. Potter
February 18th, 2010 - 09:11

Absolutely brilliant.

( REPLY )
Zardoz67
February 18th, 2010 - 10:56

This Anton is wonderful. Reasoned, articulate and bile free. This is simply great writing and whatever your day job it is wasted.

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Roxy_Hart
February 18th, 2010 - 11:01

Nice article.
The suggestion that we are just sheep following Stephen Fry still, to this day, is what annoys me most about the whole thing. Because I chose to complain to faceless people who I’ve never met via a computer then OBVIOUSLY I’m not able to think for myself.
My thoughts are with Andrew Cowles and the rest of Stephen’s family and friends today. I hope they take some comfort in the fact that we were all disgusted by Moir’s bile

( REPLY )
wade
February 18th, 2010 - 11:06

great piece. you’re only wrong about one thing: it’s not the tide that’s coming in, it’s a tsunami !!

( REPLY )
Ramon Youseph
February 18th, 2010 - 11:37

I too am a fellow bristol writer. Loved the piece and you made some great points.

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sianushka
February 18th, 2010 - 11:45

electroweb – it wasn’t illegal what she said but it did technically break some of the PCC’s rules such as using hateful language and intruding on a family’s grief. the ruling decided because gately died in a public arena she wasn’t really intruding, which is such a weak excuse imho.
well said anton as ever.
i complained and tweeted and blogged about it. and even if we didn’t ‘win’ at least we showed that we have a voice. free speech is precious, and writing hateful gossip is a mockery of it in my view. and mocks places in the world that really don’t have free speech.

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Rod Sutherland
February 18th, 2010 - 12:04

The PCC only received 25,000 complaints on the Moir article however, apparently it needs at least 1,000,000 before taking action.

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Lostgirl
February 18th, 2010 - 12:47

This ruling is extremely disappointing and actually suprising. It was a truly awful article and whilst they maybe able to make arguments about Ms Moir being able to say what she wishes (whether true or not). The very fact that no one seems to have problem with this article being published before he had even been buried is actually disturbing. This to me shows the absolute contempt the media have for everyone but themselves.

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GayAsXmas
February 18th, 2010 - 13:23

The PCC claimed that “it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article”. This is clearly bollocks. Moir’s article only makes sense as a larger attack against civil partnerships. Otherwise, there is no reason for the suicide of Matt Lucas’ partner to be included in the column. She also ignored the coroner’s report which destroyed any kind of factual basis for her claims. But I agree with you Anton – this was about the PCC circling the wagons. They just couldn’t have picked a worse writer to do it for.

( REPLY )
prolierthanthou
February 18th, 2010 - 14:14

“Time was when it was a one-way conversation between our masters in the Fourth Estate and the rest of us; they shouted and we had to listen. Now, we can shout back, if we like.”

This is just about the truest thing I’ve read about the internet and old journalism. We have long since past the point, if it was ever true, where journalists and columnists feel the need to live up to the authority the mastheads and circulation figures give them. Instead, the name of a venerated newspaper and the fact they’re allowed to write for it is taken as all the authority needed, and too often used as a licence to write any old rubbish.

Comments threads on news sites are often a bearpit of idiocy (and worse), but sometimes magic happens, and a thoughtless, fact-free article banged out by the assistant editor’s niece will get instantly shredded in the comments by commenters who, unlike the writer, actually know the subject area.

No wonder so many columns write about the ‘online mob’. The one-way communication of print newspapers leaves no room for the reader to correct lazy, ill-thought through gibberish knocked out in half an hour for a no doubt eye-wateringly high word rate. The internet can. Hopefully, as with the Moir complaints, this drip-drip of correction will have a gradual improving effect.

( REPLY )
anna
February 18th, 2010 - 14:16

Sadly, I am not suprised by the PCC’s ruling at all.

I hope that Gately’s partner, family and friends still find some comfort in knowing that so many people were and continue to be outraged and disgusted by Moir’s and the Daily Mail’s (mis-)conduct.

( REPLY )
Kenny Evil
February 18th, 2010 - 14:17

“Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered.”

Here she is explicitly saying that Gately’s death was something other than natural causes. It wasn’t a natural one by any yardstick, except for the one the Coroner uses when making his assesment based on his years of training and intimate knowledge of the case.

“Nevertheless, his mother is still insisting that her son died from a previously undetected heart condition that has plagued the family. ”

As Charlie Brooker put it, she insists in the face face of medical evidence that agrees with her.

“Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.
Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened.”

Her point here is just weird, as if “normal” marriages have all been perfect happy-ever-after stories and none of them have broken down or been ended by the tragic death of one of the partners. No one has ever insisted that all gay marriages will end up with perfect couples who are happy forever, they’re just campaigning for the opportunity to have that chance, as heterosexual couples do.

“As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine.

For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.
”

how can anyone read that and not see slime pouring out of their monitors? ‘A very different and dangerous lifestyle’ is a dogwhistle phrase that the PCC pretended they couldn’t hear.

chris

( REPLY )
George Allwell
February 18th, 2010 - 16:42

Brilliant Anton – I concur wholly that your day job is robbing the public of potentially more articles of this ilk. This should be the editorial for any newspaper tomorrow that is sick and tired of hate-filled fact-less bigoted nonsense being churned out by these so-called commentators. She has the right to say and write it, but the public also has a right to challenge its validity and truthfulness, and because it was filled with blatant lies – be issued with an retraction.

I do often wonder if this level of publicity for a columnist is constructive? Would it not have been better if no-one commented and the article was left to rot on whatever page it was wrongly printed? Anyway – if I never read another word written by her, my life will be the better for it.

As for the PCC, what a shower of Dacre-shite that is. In my opinion.

( REPLY )
Northernbloke
February 18th, 2010 - 21:46

Jan Moir actually did violate article 5 of the PCC code of conduct (it regards sensitivity in relation to grieving), and she bloody admitted it in print, when she lamely tried to defend her nasty little screed, by owning up that it was INsensitive, to publish the article on the day before Stephens funeral. So I can’t really see why the PCC ruling didn’t go like this.

PCC person A: Article 5 stipulates “”"”" Sensitivity “”" relation to grieving. It’s been claimed Jan Moir was insensitive, by 25 000 complaints and even some journalists.

PCC person B: Which journalist?

PCC person A: Jan Moir.

PCC person B: Can we go home now?

Now I’m not saying that having Paul Dacre as chairman of the PCC code of conduct is a sever conflict of interest, but hmmmm??

( REPLY )
The Bristol Blogger
February 19th, 2010 - 10:38

The free speech argument over this is a little more nuanced than the abstract claim “Free speech trumps everything!”

While the classical liberal idea that freedom of speech and expression is vital for social progress and should therefore be encouraged does apply here, there’s also a more subtle concern that providing a de facto ‘right’ to be offended to special interest groups could have a negative cumulative effect on freedom of expression over time.

If the Moir campaign is granted their ‘right’ to be offended and concessions (like apologies, censorship, bans, sackings etc) made then the next campaign who feel they’ve been offended will feel entitled to a similar ‘right’.

Of course such campaigns aren’t the sole preserve of the left and progressives. These campaigns can be mobilised by the right and by religious interests. Remember the Brand/Ross campaign?

Do we give concessions to all interest groups who are offended? How do we decide? Is there a means of constructing a hierarchy of offence caused (suitably policed by the state or a quasi-state body)?

I therefore doubt in the long term these types of campaigns will deliver power to the people. The power will always lie with the body that gets to decide what is and isn’t offensive.

It’s not that free speech trumps everything, it’s that tolerance is the simplest and least worst option.

( REPLY )
- Anton Vowl
  February 19th, 2010 - 12:51
  
  Where was the call for a ban though? I certainly wasn’t calling for it to be banned. Can’t you be annoyed, and argue that something has breached a code which exists, without wanting it to be banned? Surely.
  
  ( REPLY )
  - The Bristol Blogger
    February 20th, 2010 - 16:08
    
    It’s not about the issue though. It’s about the precedent.
    
    If they censure Moir/the Mail they’ve then set the precedent for every other group. Rest assured the religious nutters, the racists et al. endlessly complain to them too.
    
    The PCC is basically a toothless, cowardly, self-interested regulator. But be careful what you wish for instead …
    
    ( REPLY )
Fruitbat
February 19th, 2010 - 12:29

Twitter was the ideal medium for this to be played out through, because the immediacy of it, and the speed at which things can be retweeted, means that anything that fires up a large number of people can spread and flare up into something massive extremely quickly. Think about the Iran protests; they were stamped on so quickly that Twitter became an essential part of spreading news virally on a minute by minute basis. Columnists writing garbage are ten a penny, which is why daily blogs ripping the shit out of them are essential to keep any criticism relevant, and Twitter is an essential part of spreading them quickly.

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Mawgen
February 21st, 2010 - 08:30

I simply don’t understand how you are not writing a column for a national paper. Please keep trying!

( REPLY )

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