Journalistic irony
Ken Livingstone recently made some comments to a journalist from the Evening Standard which have been published and for which Ken has refused to apologise. Some might say that the journalist, Oliver Finegold went beyond the boundary of reasonable journalism in his pursuit of Ken Livingstone and by doing so bordered on harassment.Piers Morgan (Ex-Editor of the Daily Mirror) wrote an article in today’s edition of the Evening Standard on the forthcoming marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles under the heading of “Don’t hate Camilla – Diana was always damaged good”. In his article, Piers Morgan states: ‘Yet when I met her (Camilla), she was really rather nice; polite, warm, very natural and surprisingly amusing. And this to a man who had devoted much of his professional life to making her private life hell’. Piers Morgan admitted through the article to carrying out his ‘devotion’ before having ever met Camilla Parker Bowles. I found this piece from Pier Morgan strangely ironic considering that many journalists, among them Oliver Finegold and Piers Morgan, pursue certain public figures to generate stories from both public and private lives, catering for the target readership of the newspapers. Many journalists do this not with the intent of unearthing some form of wrong doing but more to cater for salacious nonsense which their editorial management appear to think their readers want to read of. As Editor of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan pursued claims of soldiers from The Queen's Lancashire Regiment abusing an Iraqi. Piers Morgan was subsequently sacked after the newspaper conceded that the photos were not genuine. In the Evening Standard article Piers Morgan having admitted devoting much of his professional life to making the private life of Camilla Parker Bowles hell presumably in the process also set out to make the life of Prince Charles a miserable hell too. One can only imagine the effect that such stories have on the family, Andrew Parker Bowles, their children or for that matter, the princes or the royal family in general. It seems that as Ken Livingstone was leaving a function, Oliver Finegold asked Ken Livingstone for a comment and after no comment was given, pursued Ken Livingstone bombarding him with the same question, time and time again. No doubt, Ken Livingstone has issues with the Evening Standard and no doubt the Evening Standard has issues with Ken Livingstone but as Oliver Finegold works for the Evening Standard, why would Ken Livingstone want to comment? If the Evening Standard really did want a comment from the Mayor on the function, Oliver Finegold, or for that matter, any other journalist could have approached the Mayor’s press secretary. Where does journalism end and where does harassment start? For Ken Livingstone to be pursued by this journalist after it should have been obvious that Ken didn’t wish to comment and for the journalist to repeatedly harangue Ken in asking for a comment does to me suggest that there was an ulterior motive behind Mr Finegold’s antics, to antagonise and harass Ken Livingstone which Oliver Finegold seems to have done.
Gareth Evans ● 7374d3 Comments