‘Living wittily in the tangle of our minds’ sometimes means thinking in an uncomplicated way about important events and human happenstance. I think a mother of two boys, killed in a car crash abroad, is an important event, and the most tragically life changing event so far in the life of her two sons. I am uncomplicated enough in my thinking, and in my not always successful attempts to be a compassionate and wise human being, to respect the grief, the privacy and the loss of all involved.
Why should that change when the person killed was Diana Princess of Wales? Channel Four intends to screen previously unseen photographs of the interior of the car, of Diana receiving oxygen in the immediate aftermath, and to broadcast previously inaccessible testimony from photographers. This is wrong, cynical, voyeuristic and deeply exploitative. Which is bad enough. But my uncomplicated take on these things isn’t to be taken as stupidity. Does Channel Four think that the following is in any sense a professional or moral justification, or that it comes anywhere near socially responsible Huh?
"there is a genuine public interest in the events that followed the crash…."(Sorry, but where is the distinction between public interest and ghoulsih voyeurism? And if by public interest, is meant the more ethically important issue of serving the public good, what good is it going to do me to see a dying mother struggling for life – or to see the mangled mess inside the car where a human being was fatally injured? PUBLIC INTEREST???).
"We don’t think the pictures are intrusive, and we have thought very carefully about the sensitivities of the families involved" (Sorry, but what other car crash victims would also be fair game for widespread broadcast on our TV screens? And thinking very carefully does not necessarily imply that you have concluded very sensitively, wisely, responsibly or even humanely!!!)
"Appropriate action has been taken to avoid any unwarranted intrusion in the privacy of the family."(Appropriate action – like what? And what is warranted intrusion, and who decides? A company already compelled to apologise for its mishandling of racist material expects me to believe it actually cares more about avoiding unwarranted intrusion, than it does about the human tragedy that lies at the centre of this whole tangled mess)
So – the above quotes are Channel Four’s "justification". How does one respond to such a litany of inanities? How do we stop semantic gymnasts from offering – non-justifications as if they were convincing, reasoned and cogent points which any sensible, mature adult can swallow with their cornflakes? Maybe by adopting the uncomplicated response of the young boy, whose perception was clear, and who was innocently unaffected by spin and illusion, and who pointed out bluntly that the Emperor had no clothes on. Channel Four’s contrived "justification" is the identical scenario – naked hypocrisy patronising the crowd by parading its see through gear!
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