A Tabloid Experience

In 1990, Iraqi head of state Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to invade Kuwait, which ultimately led to the Gulf War of 1991. John Simpson, foreign affairs editor of BBC Television, reported on the war from Baghdad. During this time, he suffered from malnutrition and exhaustion and had to go to hospital in Amman, Jordan, a situation which brought him to the attention of the British tabloid press. After leaving the hospital he looked back on his experiences with the press.

Soon after leaving Baghdad a fortnight ago I was admitted to hospital in Amman. The British tabloids had been very kind, and had written some undeservedly pleasant things about me. Wars require heroes, and since none was at hand I was turned into one. It was never quite explained why I was more heroic than the other British journalists in Baghdad... or than the British camera teams who worked with us. No doubt it helped that my girlfriend was decoratively at hand in Amman.

I was sitting in hospital reading Fielding and listening to Mitsuko Uchida when a group of journalists and photographers arrived. They were, as always, good com­pany, and very pleasant. One noticed a small badge of Saddam Hussein on my bed­side table, given me the day before by a friend of mine as a joke. I said that the nurses and cleaners at the hospital, which was mostly staffed by Palestinians, had be­come noticeably more friendly when they saw the badge. It was a mistake. Two days later I was having a drink with a senior figure from the hospital when he produced a fax of a newspaper article and waved it in my direction. He was distinctly nettled. I read it. “‘At first doctors were reluctant to admit me [to the hospital],’ said John. ‘Then they saw my Saddam Hussein badge. Suddenly everything changed and they found a bed for me.’” I looked at my host. Even as I insisted that I had never said any of these things, I could see he was thinking, “But how could the British newspaper just make up a thing like that?”

The tabloids are like a mediaeval quin­tain: they hit you coming and going. Having created this ersatz hero, the sec­ond stage of the story was to reveal him as a thoroughgoing hypocrite. A glance at Who's Who indicates that I no longer live with my wife and two daughters. And so for five days a group of tabloid journalists camped out in front of the flat which I used to share with my family, and which now belongs to my ex-wife, in order to get her to dish the dirt to me. They rang the bell and called her on the phone a great deal during those five days. They even phoned at one in the morning. It became so unpleasant that she had to ask friends to go with her when she left the house. My younger daughter, a beautiful, languid but tough-minded 19-year-old, was confront­ed at the doorstep by a Sunday newspaper journalist. My daughter was hypnotized by her lank hair, also the orange lipstick. “I’m a woman and my editor’s a woman,” the journalist explained. “Our paper is particularly interested in the woman’s point of view. Do you have anything to tell me?” “Yes,” answered my daughter. “I'm telling you to get out.”

Another of the journalists, this one from the Daily Mail, asked my ex-wife, who is an American portrait artist of considerable ability, what she thought when she saw pictures of me with my girlfriend. “I don't think much about it,” she said crisply, and refused to say anything more. The account of this exchange in the following day's Nigel Dempster column was a little dif­ferent: “‘I've not been worried about John - he's an adrenalin junkie,’ remarks Diane acidly.” And it ends, “A word of warning from Diane about relationships with war correspondents: ‘Ninety-five per cent of the time the job kills them...’”

That is, of course, precisely the kind of thing an ex-wife is expected to say; ex-wives, for the tabloids, are always "acid": The fact that they had found in Diane one who wasn't, and who has maintained an affectionate relationship with her former husband, didn't matter. The tabloids don't want mere reality, they want stereo­types: bitchy ex-wives, resentful daugh­ters, brave television correspondents who prove to be hypocritical bastards, Pa­lestinian doctors who turn away patients unless they support Saddam Hussein. In each case the tabloids are the prosecutors, they provide the evidence, and they act as judges on it. There is no serious redress from their decisions, because people believe what they read and cannot easily accept the notion that it might just be invented. “I saw your ex-wife had a real crack at you in Nigel Dempster the other day,” said a friend of mine when the fire­storm was over. I started to explain, but his eyes were taking on the same look as those of the Palestinian doctor after he'd read the cutting about the Saddam badge.

By John Simpson

 

Task 3. Answer the questions:

1. Write a report on the events and circumstances which led Simpson to write this text.

2. Why didn’t the Palestinian doctor in Amman and a friend of Simpson's both believe the journalist's explanations?

3. In what way did the tabloids use and change the information they knew from Simpson? Describe their methods and the various steps by which the story was presented to the readers.

4. What conclusions about the tabloid press does Simpson draw from his experience?

5. Do you agree with Simpson's view of tabloid papers? Give reasons for your point of view.

 

Task 4. Discuss with your group:

In the newsroom of the Sun a sign reminds reporters: “News is anything that makes the readers say, ‘Gee whizz’”, i.e. anything that surprises them. What do you think of this motto?

 

Task 5. Read another article and turn to the tasks after it.