Hiding the truth is not media’s job
To listen to former Schillings partner Gideon Benaim, you might be forgiven for thinking that every member of the media is enrolled among the forces of Lucifer.
Benaim – a former winner of Partner of the Year at The Lawyer Awards – is a ferocious litigator, even though his Ryan Giggs injunction eventually failed after a combination of social media and the Sunday Herald forced the story out into the open.
But while you’d expect a claimant lawyer to have a jaundiced view of the media, it was journalists, rather than the authorities, who exposed its worst practices. The Metropolitan Police – deeply implicated in dirty tabloid practices – failed to act.
With the Leveson report due, the refusal of the British press to run the Kate shots was not surprising. However, in the long run, the argument around press regulation may be a sideshow; The Sun’s decision to re-enact the Harry photographs was a risible response to the fact that the originals had gone viral. The tabloids - the traditional targets of legal ire - are slowly dying. Even at the top end, news-led print journalism is ceasing to be; to borrow a phrase from The Economist, print is now all about a lean-back read. One reason why The Lawyer switched to our new, well-received design was that news in print simply doesn’t fit modern reading habits. But the tabloids, reliant on print delivery of sensational headlines, don’t have room for manoeuvre when they’re up against guerilla celeb websites.
And libel lawyers, less focused on the one-off headline, are becoming reputation consultants across the piece. Benaim is aiming to do this at Michael Simkins, just as his former firm Schillings has been doing. Schillings’ website argues that corporate reputation protection extends to “salacious reporting of impropriety by a senior employee or the scale of remuneration”. Call me naïve, but I’d have thought sexual harassment or outrageous bonuses, say, were legitimate subjects to cover.
Most of us journalists outside of the glossies see our role as holding organisations to account, however imperfectly we actually do so. In these over‑PR’d times, though, some businesses feel that the reporter’s role is somehow to manage their reputations. It’s a mismatch of expectations, let’s say (newsroom parlance would be a little more Anglo-Saxon). It’s not the lawyers or the journalists who have the upper hand in this reconfigured media world; it’s the spin doctors.
Readers' comments (8)
I fought the law and the PR team won | 8-Oct-2012 4:23 pm
Hear, hear; in a time when the ever-multiplying ranks of the legal press are becoming ever more sycophantic law firm advertisers and apologists for the excesses of the industry rather than investigating them; and the more caustic edge of some legal observers is becoming softened and more passive with time, it's good to know some journos are still prepared to make partners 'choke on their cornflakes' in the morning. Long may it continue.
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Anonymous | 10-Oct-2012 12:06 pm
Does anyone really want to go back to the Jimmy Savile era where no one said anything about what was going on?
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Humni | 6-Nov-2012 12:43 pm
Just seen this and have circulated to former colleagues and victims. Of course no-one ever wanted to hide the truth. But it's embarrassing to see the publication try to appeal to circulation by sinking into the tabloid nastiness that Levenson is all about, and then denying that it does anything other than uncover "the truth.
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Dotdu | 7-Nov-2012 12:20 pm
The editor shamelessly made clear to her "inferiors" that good journalism has to be sold, and sold by whatever you can get away with. Searching out the facts or the truth? Don't be funny – that can't be allowed to get in the way of base titillation that might increase coverage. Not all of us wanted to be channelled into this mindset.
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Emma | 12-Nov-2012 9:42 am
Interesting inside track folks. Anyway, no-one would willingly have much to do with some of these people if we could avoid dealing with them.
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Rosey | 13-Nov-2012 2:06 pm
We all got the pressure to push circulation. But "hiding the truth"? First you have to have an incorruptible interest in always seeking it out, even if it means that the story is no longer a tabloid sale. That is the price of being entitled to prattle on about publishing the truth. She doesn't get it dopey.
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Clarisse Mundy | 15-Nov-2012 2:30 pm
If we actually liked them a bit more then maybe they would be more reasonable than doing their tabloid stuff (alongside lots of good contributions it has to be said). But how do you like them??
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Dorothy Goodman | 16-Nov-2012 9:10 am
Like them! If I had the same morals as her and the people who have to swallow those values I would make my own views clear – but I don't think its right for any of you to come out with this stuff which is obviously trying to damage or hurt, if you can't tell us who you are. Just don't hit the anonymous button. Seemples.
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