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THE GUARDIAN |
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COMMENT
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Prime time
for liars and sleaze artists
Why does the media dance to the tune of Peter Foster and his ilk? Peter
Preston Jayson Blair has brought us one boon, at least. He's opened up a debate. Would Peter Foster, Lord Brocket, Major Ingram, Jonathan Aitken, James Hewitt, Jeffrey Archer et al please sit quietly through the opening speeches? I expect Ant and Dec will get a word in later. This Blair, to remind, is the young, black reporter who conned the New York Times. You may have read a chunk of his book of the con in Saturday's Guardian. And over here, because we're talking great American institutions falling on their noses, such publicity may perhaps (and I plead the fifth) be justified. But over there, because Blair is still a fresh stain on his profession, no such tolerances seem to apply. When Katie Couric, the perky blonde from NBC, put Jayson on her chatshow sofa, the howls resounded. Tavis Bailey, one of the top black TV interviewers, said he "wouldn't give Blair even 60 seconds". The man "is an embarrassment to any African-American journalist in this country. What he did was wretched." Enter Kurt Eichenwald, a Times reporter himself, sounding off in a Poynter Institute discussion. "What does it say about the state of modern journalism that reputable reporters and editors are spending time interviewing someone whose only claim to fame is as a deeply disturbed, pathological liar? ... Why are we participating in this freak show? "Pathological liars are pathological liars. They lie. In my job, covering fraud for over a decade, I have come across more than my share of Blair-type liars. They are all the same. Once they are caught, they pretend to be confessing - then lie all over again ... And all of them - as you dig deeper into their false confessions - are thoroughly, thoroughly unrepentant ... I am appalled that some fools in our profession are actually demanding that people respond to Blair's latest accusations ... it appals me to watch professionals buying tickets to this circus, pretending to adhere to journalistic principles, when ... all they're doing is serving as a dishonest delivery system". So, with barely a hop, skip or jump, we reach Peter Foster, the ex-boyfriend of Carole Caplin, returned from the jungles of Queensland ("I'm a con artist - get me out of here") to harry another Mr Blair and promise amazing memoir revelations of Downing Street life that "may bring down the prime minister". Sunday headlines dutifully took up his lurid refrain. Order your hard copies now. Every word of the Eichenwald thesis magically reapplies. Pathological liars carry on lying; it's what they do. Their freak show never leaves town. Yet we suckers always give them an uneven, gawping, trusting break. Maybe the New York Times failed in its duty of care to Jayson Blair. But he missed his moment of redemption when he took his publisher's advance and began regurgitating his pathetic little frauds as though they were mighty events. The eighth deadly sin is self-importance. Yet with Peter Foster there isn't even an embryo of an argument. He's a convicted fabricator of heartless tales. He took in the Blairs. Why on earth, 15 months on, let him take us in again with another pyramid sale of tall stories? Sting merchants aren't the lovable rogues the BBC parades in its tatty Hustle. They're the chillest kind of serial crooks. Which brings us, suddenly, to the wider beaches of Media Fantasy Island. Of course, the bodies sunning themselves here are different, some lately released from jail, some never banged up and merely reviled, some gallantly rising from the dead. James Hewitt, who loved Princess Di and sold her secrets for money, is just "Major Rat" in the tabloid pantheon and star of a Channel Five reality flop. Lord Brocket, from I'm a Celebrity has actual form, though: two-and-a-half years behind bars for insurance fraud. He's got an autobiography pending. Christine and Neil Hamilton played panto in Guildford last season. What became of Charlie Ingram, after his ludicrous attempt to cheat ITV out of a million? He rose again on the house- and wife-swap telly circuit. And Aitken? He repented, sought a political return ticket and published his prison memoirs in the Guardian. And Archer? The Good Shepherd's pie worked similar miracles for him, though his memoirs went to the Daily Mail. Step back and purse lips. There's a desultory lesson here. We may not, as a society, be long on understanding and forgiveness. Our hearts can be as cold as the tide across Morecambe Bay. But with sleaze or exploitation or worse, we're uncommonly charitable. You don't need giant breast implants to eat cockroaches for Ant and Dec: a noble spell in clink will do just as well. You don't need talent to go live on Five: kissing and telling and selling will pay your rent. It may, sure enough, be unfair to lump all our penitents in the same basket. Perhaps Mr Aitken is in truth born again (though I'd feel warmer and gentler if he'd explain what he was doing at the Ritz in Paris to begin with). Perhaps Charlie Brocket is just an endearing card making his way back from disgrace. But why, pray, do publishers and TV producers dance so sweetly to their tune? Why are we apparently doomed to climb another mountain of mendacity with the "human headline" Peter Foster? Why do the good guys get MBEs (if they're lucky) while the bad guys make a media mint? I read about Jayson Blair's unhappy home life and supposed sexual molestation and agony of stress on the great, grey Times with a curiously dry eye. Burning Down My Masters' House: £12.13. Thank you so much for being with us on the sofa today, Jayson ... Even he couldn't make it up. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
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