ABSTRACT
The problems with the ends and means argument are first, that some journalists take this to mean that they are free to break the law or at least behave badly so long as they think they have a good reason. Second, this implies, yet again, that they are in some way licensed to act as moral and almost legal guardians for society. Not everyone would see that as necessarily a bad idea and there is a way in which the public humiliation that the press can provide is distantly related to the public humiliation sinners used to get in church when their sins were denounced from the pulpit. My aim is to draw attention to assumptions which underly some of the activities of journalists. If their role as moral arbiters (ferreting out fraudsters, paedophiles, drug-dealers and so on) were more openly acknowledged, then perhaps a more rigorous selection and training would be recommended. Perhaps more consistency would then emerge in their thinking. It isn’t logical to look at media output as if it all comes from one source but if you allow yourself to do that for a moment there are some contradictions. To read the tabloid press (and the broadsheets which hang on to the coat-tails of the tabloids) you’d think that extra-marital sexual encounters were only for deviants, that one-night stands were beyond the pale and that oral sex was the province of the prostitute. Meanwhile in another part of the media forest, there are several lifestyle magazines for women and men, girls and boys which fill their pages with advice about how to have as much sex as possible. Another topical example: many newspapers are so fierce in their condemnation of paedophiles that they publish photographs and names to help parents know who their children should avoid. Meanwhile other ‘journalists’ on magazines for young teenage girls publish photographs that would delight the average paedophile and are encouraging behaviour that can only make girls more vulnerable (McKay 2000).
