Page 253 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

242 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

In reporting such affairs, tabloid papers have been denounced as
squalid and distasteful. Often, it is perhaps not so much the reporting as
the affair itself that is squalid, or the public hypocrisies which usually
attend their ‘revelations’. Condemnatory responses of the kind with
which we are all familiar may be little more than an attempt by
representatives of official, public cultures to prevent further public
inspection of uncomfortable transgressions of codes of conduct by
which they would have us all live. In such circumstances it does not
seem inappropriate to suggest that the tabloid papers can be considered
subversive. They can force into the open problems associated with
liberalism’s assumption that individual freedom will be tempered with
responsibility in private matters, at least among those who can be
regarded as civilized. Their revelations of improprieties, or, with the aid
of telephoto lenses, of actions which have not been carefully cultivated
and rehearsed, have the potential to puncture and disrupt the aura of
respectability and authority which envelops those who hold public
office. I said they can do so, because I am aware that they can
sometimes reinforce authority by means other than the rites and rituals
which attend certain public offices. So, the snatched images of the
royals at play may reinforce their authority, rather than undermine it, by
humanizing them. Nevertheless, there remain occasions when the
invasions mounted by the tabloid press are not against private territory
at all, but instead against the imaginary dimensions of the world of
public figures. Then, they bring to public visibility disclosures every bit
as sensitive as those leaked about the secret services or about MPs’
undeclared commercial interests. These may have the capacity to shatter
illusions, though not, perhaps, within the hallowed realms of the public
sphere. At the very least, they can be reminders that ‘they’, public
figures, are not always what they prefer, or allow themselves, to seem;
that they are not above the earthiness of the everyday world; and that
they are not the paragons of the virtues they may seek to promote in
others.
Well, okay, this seems plausible, but what about some of the other
material which finds its way on to the pages of the tabloid press. What are
we to make of the prominent coverage of Cybill Shepherd’s marital
problems? What are we to make of such headlines as ‘BOOZED
BOTHAM NUTTED HOTEL GUARD’ (Sun, 15 December 1988), or
‘TARBY’S NIGHT WITH BLONDE’ (Sun, 16 January 1989)? In some
measure these stories may operate in a similar though more intense
way. They frequently deal with figures whose talents have granted them
wealth and privilege in measures that are beyond what most of us can