Media Matters
No European paper would have dared bring down Prince Andrew
I happened to be in Venice during the recent terrible floods, the worst since 1966. Many ancient churches, including St Mark’s, have been damaged. Businesses, homes and shops were inundated. The cost of putting things right will run into tens of millions of euros. And then the next flood will come along. Poor Venice.
The mayor of the city, Luigi Brugnaro, has pointed his finger at climate change, but I don’t suppose many Venetians will buy that theory. They tend to blame the failure of the Italian government to complete the six-billion-euro MOSE flood barrier, which was conceived decades ago. It has been blighted by technical problems and corruption. In 2014, the then Mayor of Venice and a former governor of the region were among 35 people arrested for siphoning off millions of euros.
Why can’t the Italian government manage to protect the most beautiful city in the world, and why has political incompetence and greed been allowed to undermine the MOSE project? Some will cite the Italian character. Italy is admittedly a corrupt and sometimes chaotic country. On the other hand, it has very advanced engineers and many of its public services run very smoothly. For example, in Venice the vaporetti are nearly always punctual (except when there is a strike) and the daily rubbish collection is marvellously efficient.
I have a possibly rather tendentious theory to explain the perennial corruption and intermittent ineptitude of Italian politicians. I don’t offer it as a complete explanation of Italy’s problems. It goes only so far. But I believe any government would be less likely to get away with colossal cock-ups such as MOSE if the country had a robust tabloid press that struck fear into the hearts of politicians. There isn’t one in Italy.
Imagine if London flooded regularly, at great cost to its inhabitants, because the Thames Barrier was useless as a result of the depredations of politicians. The tabloids would go mad. Guilty ministers would be called out. Their finances would be investigated, and photos of their swanky houses displayed. If one of them were discovered lurking on holiday in the Bahamas, the newspapers would require his or her instant return, and he or she would come scurrying back to face the music.
So far as I can see, none of this has happened in Italy. I’m sure journalists have been highly critical. But Italian newspapers are well-mannered and restrained – rather like the old Independent or Guardian. They don’t shout or scream or threaten politicians. There are no huge, intimidating headlines demanding resignations. And they anyway exert less power and influence than tabloids in Britain because their circulations are so much smaller, and their distribution often regional. There is nothing in Italy that might remotely be compared to the Daily Mail or the Sun.
If these newspapers, or the Daily Express, Daily Mirror or Daily Telegraph (which increasingly has a tabloid spirit), existed in Italy, they would have torn apart the likes of Luigi Brugnaro. They would have doorstepped him at his home and followed his wife and tracked him down to Harry’s Bar. They would have harried him and made his life a misery. There must at least be a possibility that an erring Italian politician living in fear of such tabloid terror tactics would get a move-on and be inclined towards greater honesty.
In Britain, it is customary for the chattering classes to look down on the tabloids, and regard them as vulgar, simple-minded and cruel. Even some broadsheet journalists hold such views. No doubt there is some truth in them. But is it not possible, even probable, that the tabloids perform a useful public service which people often ignore?
Of course, there is still corruption and incompetence among our own political classes. The tabloids can’t wave a magic wand and make everything all right. But stories about scandals in the NHS, financial chicanery and administrative foul-ups often appear first in their pages.
They’ve lost a lot of circulation, of course, and my impression is that online they pack less punch, or perhaps a different sort of punch. But they’re not finished yet.
The recent defenestration of Prince Andrew is proof that some of the old power survives. Granted, his downfall was set in motion by his disastrous interview with Emily Maitlis on BBC2. But all the questions she asked were based on stories that over the years have been run in the tabloids. It was they who exposed and investigated his links with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and hammered the Prince over his connections with that awful man, as well as other unsavoury and imprudent connections. And after that embarrassing kamikaze interview, it was the tabloids – not social media, nor the sedate BBC – that led the pitiless charge against him.
I doubt whether a compromised, elevated public figure would be brought down in Italy or almost any other European country quite as Prince Andrew has been. Love them or loathe them, we need the tabloid newspapers.