I was at the BBC on Wednesday afternoon when the news broke that Huw Edwards was the person everyone has been speculating about. I could tell something was afoot, as the newsroom started rushing around, in anticipation of some incoming storm. Reporters immediately stationed themselves outside the building, eliciting the views of anyone passing by. One of the security guards shared his opinion with me: “Lovely man. So nice to us. Such a shame.” Others were less sympathetic.
I was there to talk about cluster bombs on The Moral Maze. Are there any moral limits on the sort of weapons one can use in a just war? Cluster bombs leave unexploded bomblets in the ground for years to come, with curious children often the casualties.
But most people at the BBC weren’t interested in this. A popular newsreader was alleged to have had dealings with at least one young person, the nature of which was still unclear. But the country — in its media and social media guise — was transfixed. The police have said they do not think any crime has been committed. The newsreader lies in a hospital bed, suffering severe distress. I wonder what the man from Kyiv thought about our moral priorities?
Perhaps this is an unfair juxtaposition. The Sun’s exposé of Huw Edwards could be seen as a legitimate expression of public-interest journalism. If the BBC’s highest paid newsreader had been acting inappropriately with people young enough to be his grandchildren, abusing his celebrity, isn’t this the sort of thing tabloid journalism exists to bring to light?
But there is another player in all of this who has come out of the last few days very badly indeed: the great British public. Notwithstanding the question of The Sun’s behaviour, we get the journalism we deserve. And there is nothing the British public enjoys more than seeing the mighty fall, especially when caught with their trousers down.
Social media is often blamed for amplifying our vices — and it does — but it also reflects back to us something of the underlying reality. We enjoy the downfall of others. We take a certain secret or not-so-secret pleasure in their suffering, dressing up our gossipy schadenfreude as moral concern. For too many of us, morality has become a pretext for cruelty. Something we relish, revelling in the prurient finger-pointing, pretending we’re part of some kind of high-minded moral crusade to root out hypocrisy. With a public like this, how can we expect the media to do anything other than spend its time sniffing about after other people’s sins?
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