Last weekend a semi-prominent British politician resigned because of a sex scandal exposed in a tabloid Sunday newspaper. We get the politicians and media we deserve we are told. Maybe. But the editors of British newspaper are begining to notice that circulation is in long term decline. Could it be that that is because the public is beginning to make its own decisions about what it is interested in?
Yes, to freedom of expression. But freedom carries with it responsibility. Time for the media as a whole to enter into public debate with a wide range of interested and informed people about what justifies intrusion in the name of the public good.
It has been suggested that broadcast news is “mostly consensus news, near monopoly collations of the tolerably important brought together at six or 10 o’clock…it is prudent and pristine” and that is the consequence of regulation. It could also be, given that all the media codes are virtually identical, that it results from a different view of what is ethical. Not so much what is forbidden as how you chose to behave because of who you are. That might be a good place to start the debate as it implies more attention to the “self” in self-regulation.
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