I frequent cry I hear during the Leveson Inquiry is that the public were as much to blame as the press - after all are we not celebrity obsessed. Is this not what drove the law abiding journalists to stoop to such low and immoral acts.
I call bollocks(1). The News of the World had a circulation of 2.8 million and the adult population of the UK is 51 million so that means that only 5% of adults bought the paper. This does not constitute a majority. Even if 3 people avidly read the paper (by presumably nicking it off the guy who did buy it) then that's still 20% - still not a majority.
I'm not saying that there's not a market for celebrity gossip but I'm increasingly doubtful that the culture is quite as celebrity obsessed as the media likes to believe. Certainly the media is celebrity obsessed but then they're drawn from a narrow demographic already(2).
So next time that someone insists that 'we're to blame' ask them if they can prove it.
(1) That's bullshit in American.
(2) Not going to go there.
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2 comments:
Heh. Thanks for saying what needs to be said.
Conversation in my house:
(kid) Did you hear about So-and-So?
(me) Who's that?
(kid) She has a TV show.
(me) About what?
(kid) She's famous, Mom!
(me)For what?
(kid) Because she has a TV show. Don't you read the news?
(me) What has she done that's newsworthy?
(kid) I just told you! She HAS a TV show!
(me) Oh. Never heard of her.
Well said.
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