The Metropolis

The appeal of court: Leveson is a guilt-free fix for hypocrites, prudes and the terminally indignant

Mike Bonnet | Monday 13 February, 2012 10:17

_{Sexually desirable guest stars such as Piers Morgan have only added to Leveson’s appeal}

The actor who plays Alan Partridge called it a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get to the truth”. The publicist Max Clifford said it has “sent shockwaves throughout Fleet Street”. And the star of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually invoked the spirit of Churchill, proclaiming: “Historically this country has a good record of standing up to bullies. In my opinion it needs to rediscover that courage now”.

It’s The Leveson Inquiry!, which on Friday reached the conclusion of its first phase investigating “the relationship between the press and the public, phone-hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour.”

Stars upon stars upon stars

Since July, autograph hunters stalking the corridors outside Court 73 of The Royal Courts of Justice have added such luminaries to their collection as: the creator of Harry Potter, Paul McCartney’s ex-wife, the funny looking one from Have I Got News For You, and former Blackburn Rovers midfielder Gary Flitcroft.

Not too shabby. Presenters on the BBC’s 24 hour news channel have been counting their lucky stars that they no longer have to make sense of grainy mobile phone footage of possible massacres in revolutionary Arab states. Instead they can indulge their desire for celebrity gossip by hearing how the paparazzi would spit at Sienna Miller to provoke a reaction, while their bosses secretly wish that the licence fee didn’t prohibit pay-per-view coverage of the inquiry.

Everyone’s at it

Because Leveson! has been captivating. But it has captivated for the same reasons the stories it is investigating became popular: an infatuation with salacious gossip; and a disturbing intrusion into peoples’ private lives. Leveson! is the opportunity for those who claim indifference to celebrity kiss-and-tells and moral outrage at the reporting of personal information to get their fix. The focus may have shifted from what famous people are doing, to how journalists find this out, but the subject matter remains the same. Leveson! has provided its viewers with a guilt-free greatest hits of the most unscrupulous press stories of the recent past.

And in response there has been a rush for media commentators to get onto their high-horse condemning the “ethical rot” in some newspapers and the public’s continued fascination with their sometimes vacuous, sometimes pernicious content. Fair enough, but if viewers of The Leveson Inquiry! are so uninterested in the love lives of celebrities, why was there a Twitter storm which attempted to write a romantic subtext into proceedings between a lawyer and Hugh Grant?

Et mea culpa

At this point it’s probably worth adding a few caveats. I support The Leveson Inquiry!, particularly with regard to what most people find abhorrent, members of the public having their phones hacked and personal grief hi-jacked to sell newspapers. I’m also aware that this is primarily a media interest story, after all, people in proper jobs don’t have time to watch BBC News all day tweeting about who said what about whom. And clearly I’ve watched some of the thing so I’m complicit in the criticisms I make.

Attractive lawyers, Paul Dacre’s shit

But at least I can acknowledge that. I watch it because I’m hoping Steve Coogan might say something funny or Paul Dacre will completely lose his shit. I prefer it when the attractive lawyer is on and the interest I have in changes to press regulation is peripheral. If they’d have televised Harry Redknapp’s trial, I’d never have even turned Leveson! on. I suspect many people, even important media types, are the same, but sanctimony prevents them from admitting so. The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger may tweet about statistics relating to the potential number of phone hacking victims, but we all know he’s really watching because he hopes one of the celebrities will compliment his newspaper’s role in exposing the scandal.

Having finished phone hacking, the next phase of Lord Justice Leveson’s investigation will consider the relationship between the press and the police. Given that there aren’t too many famous policemen knocking around these days, I suspect that the court’s autograph hunters will be moving on to pastures new. I wonder if media interest will as well.

Photo: Leveson Inquiry screengrab sourced from The Guardian

---