Category / Journalism

by Lindsey Kennedy

Nothing to Hide: Hypocrisy, Sensationalism and the Media Feeding Frenzy

Channel 4’s shockingly biased documentary and the collapse of the News of the World amount to the same thing: the shameless moral arrogance of a self-serving media machine.

In 2009, after nearly three decades of conflict, the Sri Lankan civil war was brought to an end. There has been intense speculation as to what took place in those final months, with both the Sri Lankan government and the insurgent LTTE accused of war crimes by the international community. To make matters worse, Sri Lanka’s prevention of overseas journalists from entering the war zone and ongoing suspicion of the Western Media means that there are no independent accounts of the these events.

This, as multitudes of journalists have been keen to point out, does not exactly help the Sri Lankan government when it claims adamantly that it has nothing to hide. However, making an extraordinary bad PR move is not the same as being automatically guilty of all crimes levied or invented, as Channel 4’s documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, aired on the 14th June, would have us believe.

Armed with the unexamined testament of a handful of unidentified people claiming to be witnesses and some deeply distressing but largely unattributed (and in some cases doctored) footage, Channel 4 declared that they had absolute and unequivocal proof that the Sri Lankan government had launched a full blown genocide upon the Tamil population in the LTTE occupied North and East of the country.

No explanation was offered as to how this footage came to be in the hands of the producers. No attempt was made to incorporate the accounts of Sri Lankan army or government representatives, or even civilians who may have had a slightly different take on events. Allegations sourced through hearsay about government policy were recycled without bothering to provide sources, evidence or any attempt at analysis; facts were instead replaced with highly emotive but largely irrelevant horror stories about botched operations on children in refugee camps and lingering, voyeuristic images of naked female corpses. Bizarrely, for a programme seeking to ‘expose the truth’, the documentary also heavily insinuated that President Rajapaksa is an autocratic dictator, when in fact his democratically elected leadership of the country has never been contested.

As investigative journalism by the BBC and Al Jazeera, has shown, it is likely that the combined actions of the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE brought about a far greater number of civilian deaths than has so far been admitted. It has also been revealed that, having initially denied bombing in ‘no-fire zone’, the army has now conceded that it did shell within this area, leading to damage to a Red Cross Hospital and resulting deaths, on the grounds that the LTTE was deliberately firing from, and keeping heavy artillery in, this location. Tamil witnesses have reported that shelling came from both sides, leaving them trapped in the firing line, whilst the UN has concluded that at various stages during the war the LTTE deliberately used Tamil civilians as a ‘human shield’.

The acts of the LTTE do not excuse those of the Sri Lankan government, but they do substantially change any attempts to get to the truth of the matter. It is very possible that the Sri Lankan army pursued its course with excessive aggression at the cost of innocent lives. If this is the case, it must, of course be investigated. However, labeling insufficient regard – even criminally insufficient regard – for human collateral as conscious race-related genocide is incredibly dangerous, sensationalist, self-serving behaviour. It may boost ratings, but it does so by manipulating and misleading viewers and, far more importantly, it validates Sri Lanka’s apprehension of Western intervention and threatens rehabilitation efforts in Sri Lanka by reigniting the race hatred, resentment and distrust which inspired the terrorist organization LTTE and brought about the war in the first place.

 

Moreover, despite calling for a full investigation into the videos it displays on the programme, despite repeated requests and evidence to suggest that the perpetrators could, in fact, have been the LTTE, Channel 4 has so far refused to hand over copies to either the Sri Lankan government or the United Nations. In short, it attempts to take the moral high ground by parasitically propagandizing the troubles of a war torn nation for its own commercial ends, whilst ultimately risking the safety of the very victims it claims to champion. This, it is suffice to say, is hardly responsible, honest journalism.

 

Of course, Channel 4’s self-interested ‘moral outrage’ is only the tip of the iceberg. Over the past week, the British public’s faith in the integrity of the press has been shaken to an unprecedented degree. Accusations of telephone hacking and bribery, which were widely and repeatedly dismissed by the police force, the press and the government (notably Mayor Boris Johnson, who called this “codswallop”) have not only resurfaced, but have been shown to be far more extensive, and far more sinister, than even the whistleblowers themselves had thought possible.

 

The result, a spate of arrests and the sudden closure of the News of the World, one of the UK’s longest running and most influential newspapers, stunned the nation. More importantly, a gulf is rapidly forming between popular fury and the reluctance of many politicians, the Prime Minister included, to investigate the accused.

Cameron’s “friendships” with Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson have been well documented, as has the reverence shown to Rupert Murdoch, not only by Cameron but by predecessors such as Tony Blair. However, it is only now that the full extent of his hold over UK politics has been revealed. Despite admitting bribing police, Rebekah Brooks reportedly told senior officials that if they proceeded with her arrest, their private lives would be publicly torn to shreds. In a Newsnight interview on the 8th June, the day after the closure of News of the World was announced, Labour politician Harriet Harman claimed that the last government cowed to the “menacing presence” of the Murdoch empire, altering its own stance and permitting illegal activity to continue, because it was afraid of its power to control public opinion. Meanwhile, on the same programme, NOtW journalist Paul McMullan maintained that those in the public eye, whether consensually or otherwise are not entitled to any degree of privacy – even that guaranteed by law – and that regularly breaking the law in order to gain a scoop on anything that ‘the media’ decides is newsworthy is entirely fair game, and represents a free press. If people have ‘nothing to hide’ he claimed, with breathtaking KGB-style reductionism, they would not mind being spied upon.

Cameron’s refusal to condemn the role of Brooks, Coulson and, crucially, Murdoch, despite this furore and the criminal behaviour that has been repeatedly admitted to, indicates that fear of the media giant still resonates, even in the most powerful circles.

And, of course, it is not just in the UK that Murdoch holds sway. News Corporation has succeeded in building a global empire of ‘thought leadership’ channels spanning print and television in some of the most powerful nations in the world.  An empire which has grown, unchecked, because – ironically – those in a position to challenge this blatant monopolisation of opinion and self-serving news are too frightened that they might become the next victim of Murdoch propaganda, should they intervene.

Revelations of government-media power imbalance and effects on the democratic process and – crucially – the way this is used to control and further business interests has bewildered a public that that proved overwhelmingly credulous when faced with a media machine claiming to be acting in its interests. With influential media figures such as Jon Gaunt still pushing for a more lackadaisical approach to TV regulations that will, he expressly states, allow openly party-biased news reporting (i.e. state-sponsored propaganda) to flourish, it is more important than ever that we as a nation learn to read between the lines, and to question the truth, the motives and the methods behind the journalism we allow to influence, and to inspire, our politics.

by Lindsey Kennedy

What We’re Up Against (Review)

Aorta Theatre Collective presents a vibrant selection of scenes from Theresa Rebeck’s catalogue of razor sharp social satire.

Directed by Rob Hale

New York playwright, ‘relapsed Catholic’ and artful social commentator Theresa Rebeck has a back catalogue as long as your arm of acutely, playfully, hilariously observed satire. Evidently fascinated by the minutiae of human foibles, prejudices, mundane neuroses and twisted logic, her work is a masterclass of witty, energetic dialogue, bizarre non-sequiturs and heightened reality.

With this in mind, it is difficult to imagine how on earth Rebeck, in her own words, very nearly “fell off the map” following a scandalously misogynistic review of The Butterfly Collection in the New York Times in 2000. Despite the outrage of the theatre community and a flurry of complaints to the newspaper, this bad press forced the play to close and, for a time, it was seriously suggested that Rebeck either write under a male pseudonym or just “do something else”.

Thankfully, Rebeck hit back with a raft of superb plays including Mauritius, Bad Dates and the co-written Omnium Gatherum, even attracting a Pulitzer nomination for the latter. She also demonstrated that she could, in fact, “do something else”, by publishing an acclaimed novel, Three Girls and Their Brother, and writing the forthcoming series Smash for NBC – to be directed by Michael Mayer and produced by Stephen Spielberg, no less.

The seven scenes selected for What We’re Up Against, deftly handled by a highly competent cast, encompass issues as diverse as workplace misogyny, funeral parlour mix-ups and a struggling actor who would rather be a barman. All share the sense of quiet desperation that Rebeck specialises in, which infuses the comedy and humanises characters that are, on the face of it, rather unsympathetic.

Each scene is interspersed by shorter pieces from Rebeck’s one act play Mary, Mother of God, Intercede for Us, which shows a harangued, business-suited Virgin Mary, played by the excellent Juliet Prague, overrun by prayer ‘dockets’ and passing on requests of varying urgency and poignancy to a seemingly indifferent God – via the divine medium of her mobile phone.

As the play progresses, this juxtaposition becomes increasingly astute; subtle shifts in the performances between self-interested egotism and overwhelming emotional fragility are intensified by Mary’s increasing despair and rage at the arbitrary way her messages are dealt with- and her powerlessness to influence these decisions. Here, as in countless other examples of her work, Rebeck skilfully takes an exhausted argument and breathes fresh life into it through an imaginative, surprising and highly visual approach.

The cast are infectiously energetic, with Sally Scott’s barely concealed hysteria making for a particularly charged and engaging performance, but at times it felt that more variation in tone could enhance their effectiveness. The more muted delivery by Michael Benz and Tom Cornish in the funeral parlour scene created perfectly balanced tension between restrained fury and agonising grief, but Demi Oyedin, perhaps feeling a little underused, offered a forceful performance that proved slightly too overbearing for such an intimate space. The comic delivery, however, was spot on throughout, frequently leaving the audience helpless with laughter.

What We’re Up Against provides an excellent and intelligent interpretation of some of Rebeck’s finest pieces and the central throughline that binds together her work and ideas. For those unfamiliar with her work, Rob Hale’s selection also offers a perfect introduction to this extremely important contemporary playwright. Not to be missed.

****

The Old Red Lion Theatre, Angel. 8th Feb -3rd Mar 2011.

by Lindsey Kennedy

Cambridge Invader (Review)

Review published in Varsity Newspaper, 8th March 2009. Cambridge Invader was a weekly feature covering a selection of the city’s (and university’s) lesser-known pubs, bars and secret societies.

Cambridge Invader: Girton College Bar

 

Our college bar closed on Tuesday. The new one is opening today, and it’s bigger and shinier and hopefully better, but nonetheless Tuesday night was seen very much as The End,  as swathes of current and ex- students poured in to the very limited space for a final nostalgic (and doomed) attempt to secure a lock-in, and to drunkenly sing College songs with misty-eyed enthusiasm and little in the way of coherent melody. Think the Pogues if half of them were actually English Public School veterans. Oh, wait, yeah. Think the Pogues.

 

As the final closure approached, panic set in. What would we do for two whole days without a cheap bar at stumbling distance? We were fairly sure this constituted a civil rights infringement. Fortunately I had a suggestion. “I know of a place,” I said. “A bar far, far away, where few students have ever ventured before.” The others raised a sceptical eyebrow. “’Tis called Girton” I said. There was a hushed silence. A few of the elders shook their wizened heads. One leaned in conspiratorially, whispering over his ale like an ancient sailor. “Have ye heard the tale,” he hissed, “of the Girton Threesome?” No. I hadn’t. And I didn’t believe it. But now I was more determined than ever to pursue the seldom trodden path to this remote Mecca of mythological debauchery.

 

The taxi pulled up outside what appeared to be a stately home. J and I hovered, feeling suddenly very isolated and vulnerable. I was reminded of the orgy scene in Eyes Wide Shut and wondered if I should have brought a mask.

 

We made our way through labyrinthine hallways and down a staircase into an underground bar which faintly resembled an S & M dungeon – all red uplighting, tucked away booths and exposed brick archways. We were the only people there. The bar lady surveyed us wordlessly with a look which said, “you’re not from these parts” and, fearing that our hacked up bodies might one day be discovered under the charmingly unlevelled flooring, we took our bottle of wine (£5.60 and certainly quaffable) and retreated to a corner.

 

An hour passed. I began to hallucinate tumbleweed. A few people turned up, but all seemed rather docile. Research revealed that the master’s efforts to prevent any Ents being organised has led to a general disillusionment with college socialising, and many Girtonians tend to eschew the bar for local pubs. I later discovered from an ex-member of my college that he’d been banned from the premises after announcing that the Mistress was a “fit little tart” during a formal dinner, which may or may not have had something to do with it. Regardless, I felt let down.

 

We finished our wine and called a taxi to take us to Cindies. As we made to leave, however, there was a sudden influx of people, establishing a highly satisfactory male-female ratio. Perhaps we were making a mistake? Just then, two previously unclocked FOLs blocked our path. “You can’t leave now!” they cried “THE SHOW’S JUST BEGINNING!” … and proceeded to strip, rapidly, to their boxer shorts. This was more like it. The bar lady nodded at the trousers around their ankles and snapped, “pull them up or take them out” with an unsurprised irritation which suggested the scene was commonplace. J and I began to reconsider our decision. Cindies, however, beckoned, and unable to persuade the men in question to accompany us, and unwilling to pass up our taxi to pay homage to the site of the – apparently real – threesome, we reluctantly departed. But we will be back. There’s untapped talent up there, girls, and the numbers are in our favour.