Why I am sickened by Cummings episode

THERE are times when I am deeply ashamed of being a journalist. I’m ashamed to see other newsgatherers become like a pack animals, turning on their fellow man and ripping them apart savagely for the chance of getting a better headline.

I will fight to my last breath to maintain freedom of the press – freedom that is supreme, the lifeblood of information and expression. But it can’t be a one-way street. And when I watch radio and TV journalists in particular sharpen their claws for the kill, I’m often sickened. Unlike print journalists, where words are measured, edited and hopefully structured, radio and TV journalists can plunge their knives in and worry about the consequences later.

I’m not being soft about this. There are interviews that necessarily need to be interrogative, the truth has to be uncovered and answers given. If you want to see the mighty fallen, just google broadcaster David Frost interviewing President Nixon. It was a classic, clever, incisive interview that has gone down in history.

But seeing Dominic Cummings stutter as he was shredded by the likes of Robert Peston and Laura Kuensberg was not classic. This week the BBC’s Emily Maitlis’ vicious, personal, ugly monologue on Cummings was totally unprofessional and the BBC, for once, took the unusual step of rebuking Maitlis.

I don’t particularly like Dominic

Cummings. His arrogance irritates me. I respect the fact that he must be a bright bloke, chosen by the Prime Minister to work with the government in these difficult times.

God knows, it’s a poison chalice for anyone to take on and it includes an intrusion into his private life that is unacceptable – as is becoming increasingly common. He’s endured frightening and intrusive doorstepping as the press camp outside his and his parents’ home and I think it’s wrong.

Cummings explained his recent actions, forensically I thought. But it wasn’t enough, and members of the press went in for the kill in an effort to score political points. They clearly had an agenda to unsettle the government at a time when political stability is key for everyone. Ripping into him has had the desired effect and now the whole country seems to be up in arms over a past demeanour when they should be putting their energy in getting the country back on its feet.

Taking advantage of their position to effectively ruin people who are often innocent is becoming more common by radio and TV journalists. False tip-offs of salacious stories resulted in Cliff Richard’s house being buzzed by TV helicopters flying. Rape victims are not named, rightly so. But often their attackers are, only to be proved innocent. But mud sticks and many of those wrongly accused are then forced out of their jobs and homes, because of misinformation.

Princess Diana may have been alive today had paparazzi not hunted her from pillar to post – just to get photographs to broadcast.

Pre-internet, when I worked on newspapers, we had a “morgue”. It was a huge room, where some poor soul sat all day long going through every publication known to man, cutting out and filing stories on individuals. We’d browse files before doing interviews. And on occasion some of these stories had been written on hearsay. So, another writer might pick up that story and add their own and before you knew it, there was a veritable Chinese whisper of wrong information that was used by lazy journalists who couldn’t be bothered to do their own investigations. And once published or broadcast, the subject rarely had the chance to defend themselves.

It sickened me then, and I vowed that if I was writing or commissioning interviews with an individual whose story held possible hurtful inaccuracies, I would always let that individual have the opportunity to read pre-published copy. I can’t look in the mirror knowing I could have ruined someone’s life printing something that could change their lives.

Radio and TV journalists obviously can’t do this. Theirs is a far deadlier way of delivering a story. The news pool of piranhas snapping at their victim makes me fear that we have caught the “yellow journalism” virus that is prevalent in the USA.

I’ve worked in radio, TV, for newspapers and magazines both here and the States. My news nose still twitches, and I wouldn’t turn down the chance to seize a scoop. But I refuse to get involved with gratuitous cruelty.

The Cummings episode has been put on the rack and stretched unnecessarily. He handled the situation poorly but it’s unlikely anyone will suffer long term through it. He wasn’t out with his mistress or going off for a jolly to his second home. He was unwell, as was his child. He’s said his piece. Now let him get back to his difficult day job. He and others have got a country to run, let him get on with it – because the sooner we get Britain up and running the better it will be for us all.

Emily Maitlis’ vicious, personal, ugly monologue on Cummings was totally unprofessional and the BBC, for once, took the unusual step of rebuking her

> Emily Maitlis was replaced for a Newsnight episode after Cummings remarks