On the morning of January 26, Sir Ian reported back to his police authority on the state of crime in the Metropolis one year after his appointment
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media. The Metropolitan Police Service needs the media and does get their help much of the time’. He continued:
I obviously have to unreservedly apologise to anyone connected to the Soham murders, especially the parents of Holly and Jessica for re-igniting this story. It was not intended to diminish the significance of this dreadful crime, which is exactly how I described it. But... I was responding to a question raised about the differential response to different murders and that led to an entirely legitimate discussion about the difference between investigative needs and news values (BBC News online, 27 th January 2006; available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4653130.stm).
This was the ‘gotcha’ moment in Blair’s ‘trial by media’. The Commissioner found himself locked into a news media maelstrom in which he was compelled to make a public apology and an unequivocal U-turn around his Soham comments. As an exercise in damage limitation, Blair’s mea culpa interview not only failed to halt the news media backlash, it actively fuelled it. The following day he was vilified in a torrent of press reports decrying his ‘crass insensitivity’ (Daily Mail, 28 th Jan 2006: 16), ‘ineptitude’ (Daily Telegraph, 28 th Jan 2006: 2) and ‘disparagement’ (Times, 28 Jan 2006: 16), and exclaiming, ‘Sorry excuse: As Ian Blair apologies to the Soham families, we ask: How Can This Man Be Britain’s’ No1 Policeman?’ (Daily Mirror, 28 th
‘Soham apology’ rather than the news media’s institutional racism. News reporting of Blair’s ‘Soham apology’ was intense. However, it was the opinion pieces that did most to crystallise what would be the dominant ‘inferential structure’ around the Commissioner. A barrage of editorials, features and commentaries dealt at length with the ‘Soham’ and ‘institutional racism’ comments. In a decisive shift in the ‘agenda building’ process, they also began cataloguing Blair’s deficiencies as Commissioner.
An editorial in the Times opined, ‘Sir Ian has demonstrated an unfortunate habit of ill-judged remarks, the latest being his assertion that media interest in the Soham 19
murders was the result of its institutional racism. He declined an immediate chance to apologise, bowing to the inevitable only after surveying yesterday’s headlines’ (28 th
Commissioner’s accusations of institutional media racism through reference to the high-profile coverage of the Stephen Lawrence, Victoria Climbié and Damilola Taylor murder cases (28 th January, 2006: 23). He then denounced Blair for his ‘demented political correctness’, his desire to use the police ‘for social engineering projects rather than to fight crime’, his obsession with ‘the press conference and the media appearance’, his preoccupation with ‘furthering a political agenda’, and his command structure’s failure to ‘prevent an innocent Brazilian electrician being riddled with police bullets on his way to work’ (ibid.). The Commissionership, Heffer insisted, ‘should not be entrusted to a man who is such a blithering, cack-handed, offensive creep… He used to be a joke. Then he became a liability. Now he is a disgrace. Sack him’ (ibid.). On the adjacent page, Vicki Woods (28 th January, 2006: 24) targeted the ‘Soham slur’ and Blair’s media profile. The Commissioner was described as ‘a clodhopping foot-in-mouther who has spent his first year as chief of the Met being baffled by one headline after another. His every attempt at ‘clarifying’ a headline issue, or in this week's cock-up a two-headline issue, doubles the damage’ (ibid.).
The Daily Express’ lead article expressed outrage that the ‘increasingly eccentric police commissioner’ had ‘managed to grossly insult the memory of murdered Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman and fabricate a nonsensical complaint against the media for ‘institutional racism’’. Rather than deal seriously with crime, it suggested, ‘Sir Ian would rather pontificate like a media studies windbag over political correctness and ‘diversity’ issues, and deliver ponderous lectures...’ (28 th January, 2006: 23). ‘His predecessor, now Lord Stevens, inspired both the respect of the public and the affection of rank-and-file police officers. In contrast, Sir Ian has become a ludicrous figure in the eyes of the public and is said to be alienated from ordinary coppers’ (ibid).
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Even for Blair’s liberal media supporters, his ‘irresistible urge to the own goal’ was becoming a troublingly familiar characteristic. The Guardian’s Owen Gibson stressed that London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, and various community groups had come out in support of Blair’s allegations of institutional news media racism (28 th January, 2006: 4). Yet the article closed with a section sub-headed ‘Other controversies’, which referred to, among other things, the Commissioner’s publicity seeking behaviour, claims that he misled the public following the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, and his role in ‘politicising’ the police by backing New Labour’s 90-day detention plans. A feature in the Independent (28 th January, 2006: 36) insisted that ‘Sir Ian, who is making considerable efforts to reverse the bias within his forces, has a right to ask the media to look into its own practices as it abuses the Met for its actions’. Yet it opened with the statement that ‘Sometimes the Metropolitan Police chief, Sir Ian Blair, seems to open his mouth only to arouse confusion, retraction and apology’.
But it was the Daily Mail’s Steven Wright who introduced the term that would be pivotal in instituting the dominant inferential structure around Sir Ian Blair. In an article headlined, ‘Sorry just won’t do Sir Ian’, Wright questioned the future of the Commissioner in light of the Soham comments, the Stockwell Shooting and his political connections with Tony Blair: ‘Downing Street, normally supportive of the man dubbed Britain's most politically correct policeman, issued a lukewarm statement and a number of high-ranking Scotland Yard officers said gaffe-prone Sir Ian was becoming a liability, and questioned whether he could keep the job he has held only since last February’ (Daily Mail, 28 th Jan 2006: 4). The Verdict: The ‘Gaffe Prone’ Commissioner The daily press’ feeding frenzy set the tone and content for the weekend’s coverage and continued into the following week. The term ‘gaffe’ was picked up by more journalists and, by 1 st February, the Daily Mail, Independent, Guardian, Sun, and Daily Express had all run stories referring to Blair’s ‘Soham gaffe’ or describing the Commissioner as ‘gaffe-prone’. By the time Blair resigned in October 2008, all the national newspapers were routinely characterising him in this way. Following the Soham controversy, then, there was a convergence of news media opinion – not a Yüklə 1,04 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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