Lloyd nearly right shock

I usually disagree strongly with John Lloyd, formerly of the New Statesman, particularly his thesis that journalists should be more trusting of politicians. But I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he says in a post last night on Comment is Free - up to a point.

Essentially, Lloyd picks up on what Max Mosley and Gerry McCann said to the to the culture media and sport select committee - that media invasions of their privacy and fabricated stories had been deeply damaging. He shoots down Mail editor Paul Dacre's view that sexual exposes are necessary to enforce sexual morality and - worse - to fund tabloid political coverage.

But Lloyd loses the plot towards the end of the piece, agreeing with McCann:

that the press had to have tighter regulation if harm to reputations, families and private lives were to be avoided.

I would insert the qualification unnecessary in front of "harm". People cannot always be protected from damage to reputations etc and should not be so protected when a genuine public interest in exposing something rotten outweighs the harm.

As Lloyd puts it himself, shortly after setting morality above truth:

Journalism finds its calling in trying to ascertain the truth, and in providing a platform for diverse views. The rest is for the law, religion and conscience.

Dog eats man whole

It's not surprising that Paul Dacre's comments about the BBC and privacy have not gone down well at the Guardian. Polly Toynbee calls Dacre "the nation's bully-in-chief" and "a coward".

Peter Wilby's analysis is equally harsh:

He argues, with truly astonishing sophistry, that "the freedom to write about scandal" is essential to "the democratic process" because, otherwise, newspapers like his wouldn't sell copies and therefore wouldn't exist.Dacre says that "it is the duty of the media to take an ethical stand." Pick up the Daily Mail and you will see that his idea of ethics includes running stories that are, at best, distorted and, at worst, plain wrong.