Front-page apologies and 700 thousand euro judgments won’t salvage old media’s credibility

Michael Hedges March 19, 2008

I must admit, I laughed so hard I cried. Two of the UKs most notorious tabloids were forced to print front-page apologies and pay real money. They lied. But today is another day that journalism cried.

Thrill seeking, tabloid-style, seems to be the only way old media, particularly of the dead-wood variety, can survive. At the same time, the more people see and hear it the lower they hold journalism in any sort of regard. And lower, too, go circulation and audience figures, not to forget ad revenue. But, as we learned from first year statistics, correlation isn’t causation. Or is it? 

The Daily Express and the Daily Star – along with their Sunday adjuncts – published front-page apologies to Kate and Gerry McCann, parents of still-missing daughter Madeleine. The Express offered that “a number of the articles in the newspaper have suggested that the couple caused the death of their daughter Madeleine and then covered it up.” For that, it is ‘sorry.’

The Daily Express and the Daily Star, et.al., are owned by Richard Desmond. The esteemed Guardian media columnist Roy Greenslade referred to Desmond as a “pornographer.” Roy has no worries about being sued. Desmond is paying £550,000 (€698,000) plus court costs.

Perhaps the tabloid media – and that includes television – should stick to UFO stories.

As it happens, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) released its 2008 report on the “State of the News Media.” The US and the UK both being Anglo-markets and, thus, the media worlds’ linguafranca for style (loud), context (none) and business model (broken) the report reiterates all we’ve heard about the migration to new media. Eighty percent of Americans say the internet is a “critical source” for news and information, up from 66% in 2006.

“The problem, it is increasingly clear, is a broken economic model—the decoupling of advertising and news. Advertisers are not migrating to news websites with audiences, and online, news sites are already falling financially behind other kinds of Web destinations.”

There is no doubt that ‘splash and trash’ attract eyes and ears regardless of the medium. France’s Le Monde carried a small item recently reporting that French magazines sold 110 million copies directly related to coverage of President Sarkozy’s journey through mid-life romance. Advertisers, however, continue their march into on-line media, says the PEJ report.

No Daily Express or Daily Star writers or editors were mentioned in the apologies, nor were any fired or censured. Roy Greenslade counted over 100 mendacious articles. Somebody wrote them.

In a sense, Richard Desmond can be excused. After all, to paraphrase Frank Zappa, he’s only in it for the money. A sweetener to the Court’s award to Madeline McCann’s parents might have been to send the writers and editors to penance at the journalism schools, to confess their sins. I know of one in Kazakhstan.