Hysteria does more harm than good
**> “There is a danger, if we’re not careful, that this can turn into a sort of witch-hunt, particularly against people who are gay.”**
**I can understand how David Cameron might have felt, being handed a list of former Tories and alleged paedophiles by, of all people, ITV presenter Phillip Schofield. It would have been less surprising if his hand had been taken off by a sock puppet, although it’s worth mentioning that a savage puppet attack would probably attract more attention than any given episode of This Morning. What relief he must have felt when it became evident that Schofield’s list was the result of a three minute search on the internet.**
What this incident serves to illustrate, however, is not the incompetence of Schofield, or indeed that of Cameron. What’s abundantly, inescapably clear is that when those in the media and politics allow a legitimate political agenda to become tainted by hysteria, more harm than good is done.
In any case, it can hardly have comforted abuse victims to know that their desire for justice seemed worthy fodder for a program with a record of tackling such hard-hitting issues as “Are JLS the hottest band in the world?” and “Should women ever go topless?” (in the poll: toplessness won: a triumph for investigative journalism). When a “misjudged camera angle” revealed the names of some people on the list, ITV jeopardised any hope of a proper inquiry being taken seriously – trial by Twitter does not constitute justice for the substantial harm abuse victims have suffered.
The internet is the home to a number of valid, but also many, many more ridiculous claims to a prime minister’s attention. A well-researched list, backed by reliable sources, might have made a considerable impact, might have forced Cameron into committing to the super-inquiry into child abuse some MPs are pushing for. A list that was sadly dredged up from Google (a cornucopia of reliable sources) taints legitimate concerns about child abuse cover-ups by association with the wealth of lizard conspiracy theories and groundless speculation found online.
So it’s not exactly surprising if Cameron’s response has disappeared behind a cloud of hysteria and controversy, even if said reply comes off as a little bit hasty, or a little bit misguided, or just possibly a little bit homophobic. While Cameron has since clarified that his warning against a “witch hunt, particularly against people who are gay” was a reaction against online gossip associating homosexuality with paedophilia, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell was right when he said that “inadvertently and unfortunately, Cameron reinforced the prejudice that associates gay people with child sex abuse”.
Well might Cameron warn of a “witch hunt”, given that previous media frenzies on the subject of paedophilia have resulted in a number of real-life vigilante incidents. Whether or not gay members of the community are the automatic victims of misguided attacks is debatable; however, headlines such as “Cameron warns against ‘gay witch hunt’ after Phillip Schofield ambushes him on live TV with list of alleged Tory child abusers” (courtesy of the Daily Mail) are hardly helpful. It’s worth remembering that the hysteria surrounding ‘Sarah’s Law’ (a bid to get the government to release the names of convicted sex offenders to the general public) claimed few paedophiles but at least one innocent paediatrician; mob justice is rarely intelligent enough to go beyond headlines (or basic common sense, apparently).
Regardless of whatever Ofcom decides, ITV claimed the ratings they were clearly scrambling for when they allowed Schofield to hand over his list on live TV. David Cameron has had the chance to cast himself as a reponsible leader, as a defender of gay rights. He has, according to Baroness Williams, behaved with “very great dignity and very great restraint”. Left in the dust the individuals involved: the rights of abuse victims to dignity and to a fair trial of their abusers, and the rights of innocent people wrongly implicated in to be free of prejudices that could endanger their lives in the coming media storm.
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