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After 23 years with the BBC, and a 40 year career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), our Editor Phil Parry is heartened to see details emerge of the Queen praising journalists for exposing domestic abuse, but dispirited that she did not highlight the insults hurled at those very same journalists for doing that job.
Earlier he has described how he was assisted in breaking into the South Wales Echo office car when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early career as a journalist, the importance of experience in the job, and made clear that the ‘calls’ to emergency services as well as court cases are central to any media operation.
He has also explored how poorly paid most journalism is when trainee reporters had to live in squalid flats, the vital role of expenses, and about one of his most important stories on the now-scrapped 53 year-old BBC Wales TV Current Affairs series, Week In Week Out (WIWO), which won an award even after it was axed, long after his career really took off.
Phil has explained too how crucial it is actually to speak to people, the virtue of speed as well as accuracy, why knowledge of ‘history’ is vital, how certain material was removed from TV Current Affairs programmes when secret cameras had to be used, and some of those he has interviewed.
He has disclosed as well why investigative journalism is needed now more than ever although others have different opinions, how the current coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown is playing havoc with media schedules, and the importance of the hugely lower average age of some political leaders compared with when he started reporting.
It seems a shame that a speech by Royalty which praised journalists for exposing abuse, did not also highlight what they must put up with to do it.
Abuse seems to be the key word.
Queen Camilla spoke at the Foreign Press Association (FPA) awards, and lauded journalists for raising awareness of domestic abuse, as well as for the pursuit of truth. Journalism was vital to freedom of expression in a democratic system, she said.
This, of course, I endorse.
But the reality is that she like many others appears to approve of the results of journalistic inquiry, but would rather not know about the trials that must be endured when it is undertaken.
Queen Camilla may well believe that journalism is vital for democracy, but apparently it is only if she (or others) are not the subject of investigations.
For example, in my case, my Wikipedia entry has been vandalised to include the words ‘tool’ and ‘knob head’, and I have been compared on X/Twitter to the comedy broadcaster Alan Partridge.
There has also been an online ‘joke’ that I would be ‘whacked’. This came from a Marc Winchester, after an investigative story about the former star rugby player and pundit Jonathan ‘Jiffy’ Davies which he may not have liked.
Mr Winchester said on Twitter/X, in a tweet which has since been deleted: “I’ll whack him (me)“, and the definition of the verb ‘to whack’ in the Urban Dictionary is: “to murder someone”.
He has links to the failed company No Debt Ltd and when it was wound up the liquidator said: “At the date of liquidation the Company’s draft accounts for the year ended 30 June 2015 suggested that the former director… of the Company… Mr Winchester (owed) the Company… a collective amount totalling £317,406… Mr Winchester was declared bankrupt on 23 May 2017”. This Mr Winchester is a family member, although it seems he is another member of the Winchester ‘club’.
But there is a connection too with Mr Winchester through another crashed business which also hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons – Falcon and Pointer Ltd.
The BBC reported that its licence to practice was taken away after more than 40 million nuisance calls had been made.
The item said: “Falcon and Pointer Ltd used automatic dialing technology to make the calls about mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI). The Claims Management Regulator (CMR)… (said)… The firm set out to ‘plague the public and rip off consumers’…”
The Alan Partridge comment was by a Sion Tomos Owen whose blog describes him as: “…a bilingual TV and Radio presenter, illustrator, writer and creative workshop tutor…”.
Mr Owen said in Welsh: “There’s no way that this website (The Eye) is for real?! It’s as if a Take a Break (light magazine) story has been edited by Alan Partridge” (laughing emoji).
He may like to know that my Wikepedia entry has now been restored to its original form, after officials removed the abusive words.
Another remark which concerned a television ‘reporter’ who had posted pictures of herself on social media in skimpy clothes, is typical of the insults I constantly receive: “Your article on Ellie Pitt was bordering on mysogynistic bullying, a really pathetic article written by a bitter individual who was a complete failiure as a BBC correspondent and also loved bashing the Catholic Church with your disgraceful Panorama programme”.
Indeed accusations of being ‘misogynistic’ (which is the correct spelling) or ‘misogynist’ are a constant refrain among those who hurl offensive comments, if factual stories are published with the targets happening to be women, yet these are potentially libellous words, and the description is provably wrong.
In the past I have also been accused online (incorrectly) of being a “bastard” (many times), an “anti-devolutionist wanker”, “pure scum”, a “liar” (also many times) a “little git”, and (correctly) a “nosey git”, “irritating”, or a “nuisance”. But these remarks come amid many others. Too many, in fact, to mention.
I rarely sue (although I do sometimes) unless the online message is particularly outrageous, and contains a libel (which most of them do).
Some can be rebutted in court using an “honest comment” defence (formerly known as “fair comment”), however most cannot, which means that any libel case is likely to be successful.
Perpetrators of this abuse appear to be unaware of the legal ramifications of their statements, and say the most appalling things online (which, of course, have been PUBLISHED to a third party so the rules apply).
It seems to be easier to make insulting remarks when a button is pressed, than it might be to consider what is being said, put pen to paper, and find a stamp, in order to send a letter.
Perhaps Queen Camilla might like to talk about this sort of abuse that journalists like me must suffer, when she praises them for highlighting the domestic kind…
The memories of Phil’s decades long award-winning career in journalism (when online abuse was rare at the beginning) as he was gripped by the incurable neurological condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – why Phil has always tried to de-bunk nonsensical conspiracy theories, but now with the pandemic largely over in the UK, absurd notions about it are again coming to the fore.
