The Whole Hog: Beware the new moral guardians

These are heady, tumultuous, and – it has to be said – extremely difficult times, both at home and away. Bemused and dazed by it all, you might well ask when things were different. And yet, it does seem to be characteristic of the age we live in. And that begs some serious questions.

Is so much more really happening? Or is it just that technology has generated an infinitely greater capacity to find and disseminate news, at speed, and that we are rapidly reaching a point of overload?

Nowadays, apart from the traditional media, there’s a whole array of citizen news platforms. These go way beyond the prosaic access channels of yore, such as phone-ins. The capacity to record something on your phone and to post it online has changed the shape of things more than we might yet realise. The boundaries between social media and news media are blurring. Which of course makes intelligent moderation more important than ever. But too often that is not what we are getting...

Legal instruments such as the Freedom of Information legislation facilitate news organisations in probing and searching out things that would hitherto have been left to moulder.

That’s good. In some ways, it’s a golden age for newshounds: so much information, so many channels of communication, so much to report. And there have been fantastic investigations over the last decade and more, work that changed history. Respect, admiration and gratitude are due to people like the late Mary Raftery for her revelations concerning the physical and sexual abuse of children.

But as well as great scoops, this is also an era of intrusion and licence. There is barbarianism and brutality in the way in which the media treats people. The depth and humanitarianism, which are reflected in the stories that hold the powerful to account, or reveal neglect and betrayal of the interests of ordinary citizens, are mirrored by a tsunami of smallness, viciousness and prurience in so much of what is published or vented.

Reflecting on the major stories of the past few weeks, five strands are worth focusing on.

The first is to do with the media’s self-appointment as moral guardians. The old order is discredited and displaced. In its stead we have journalists, commentators and bloggers.

At the high end, modern day Woodward and Bernsteins hold the powerful to account; but at the low end there is far too much pernicious rooting and scratching going on just because you can. I’m not just talking of paps hiding in the bushes and sneaking boob’n’bum shots of celebs – though that is a pernicious activity. There’s also a worrying tendency to poke and bully people just for the hell of it, to see if anything shakes out of the tree.

Of course, the meeja don’t just report and comment on the news, they also choose and influence it. But on what grounds? Like, why this and not that? A collective addiction to trailing Twitter trending leads to media platforms that should know better herding around what excites the twitterati rather than an objective analysis of what’s actually of significance. And believe me, some things are really not important.

The second strand concerns whistleblowers. On the whole, what’s not to like? It’s win-win if both news impact and moral victories can be achieved...

International whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden have given media organisations much to work with. But they have also done humanity great service in revealing the dirty work of which governments are capable. The same goes for current allegations in Ireland regarding the Garda Siochana and bankers.

So, without question, whistleblowing should be encouraged. But: only if there are adequate safeguards to protect organisations and individuals from spurious and mischievous allegations and personal vendettas. An allegation is just an allegation till it’s substantiated. The right to innocence until proven guilty is increasingly being seen as dispensable. Well, it is not...

The third strand is to do with malice on the part of news organisations. These are perhaps the most cynical of times and it’s hardly surprising therefore that commentators sometimes exhibit exceptional levels of suspicion and cynicism – especially regarding politics and politicians, the public service and public servants, religious organisations and enterprises.

But as the new, self-appointed, moral guardians of the nation, journalists and commentators must remember the fundamental dangers of self-righteousness. It is just a small step from acting as moral guardians to assuming the mantle of moral police. Meeja organisations might also usefully ponder this: is it ethical to do wrong in an attempt to uncover wrongdoing? To help them answer it, a theatre might usefully run a season of The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s commentary on the McCarthy era.

The fourth strand concerns evidence. Sadly, the media tend to take a criminal justice view of evidence rather than a scientific one. For a scientist, evidence gathering and analysis is a lengthy and frequently dull process; and conclusions follow on from what the evidence shows. That is a very different emphasis than is taken in policework, where the search is for evidence that will help reveal who committed a crime.

In the same spirit, too often journalists and commentators are looking for what will support a story or a viewpoint rather than for the truth. Admittedly, the truth is often prosaic and won’t sell papers or drive internet traffic. But that’s no excuse...

The fifth strand is to do with hysteria and rage. As I have pointed out before, these are furious times, where shit-stirring and vitriol are seldom far from the surface. We all really need to think about this and, in particular how, in the era of the internet and social media, the very nature of discussion and debate is changing.

As the US academic Cass Sunstein says: “New technologies... make it easier for people to hear the opinions of like-minded but otherwise isolated people.” True, and in a democracy it’s the views of those we oppose that we should be hearing and digesting.

There’s too much sturm und drang. Smoke and daggers, as Bertie Ahern memorably (mis)put it. Almost everybody shoots from the hip. Or the lip. It’s very difficult now to generate calm, considered and rational debate.

Just when we need it most.