THE PRESS DENNIS HACKETT
It's been a tough week in Bangla Desh. Not the first (nor the last.by any means) but tough enough, now the refugees are in millions and the cholera deaths up to God-knows- what, for it to be news in all quarters. In the populars until now, President Yahya Khan's bungling, murderous incompetence hadn't really been hot stuff, but massacre and plague at last elevated the pathetic plight of East Pakistan to the front pages.
True the serious business (ie the circula- tion war) had to be kept in sight. The Sun managed to remind readers, after a stirring Page One plea for aid to be speeded, that it was still 'Thigh Week' in the Sun but then, if taste were allowed to intervene, the Sun might go out of business.
As it was, those of us who are paid to read were in for the 'Bridge of Thighs', Two Lovely Black Thighs' etc. I think they missed `The thigh's the limit'—possibly because they knew it wouldn't be. However, getting back to our muttons, the pops went at it. And I thought the Mail, which is beginning to wear its mini with much more flair and which is certainly getting better, came out best. Foreign Editor Brian Freemantle did a re- doubtable job:. good straight reporting with moving pictures by Norman Potter. Possibly because its editor, David English, is an ex- Foreign Editor himself, the Mail seemed, to get there first. , The Mirror came in early but strained my credulity to breaking point with its 'Dearth in the Family' story. The display lines were, to say the least, 'come-ons': `Vinanti prepared supper, made love to her husband and then cholera struck ... she literally melted away.'
In terms of editorial, on-the-night thought, this could be interpreted: 'Just in case you're getting bored with it all, we're going to give it you in human interest terms.'
Mr Donald Wise's story, from Calcutta, concerned a girl in her early twenties pre- paring supper for her husband on a Calcutta street—rice and vegetables out of two old cans. They drank, apparently, unboiled water, then 'after supper Vinanti and her husband made love. Then she was suddenly seized with agonising cramp. The cholera had struck, Vinanti literally melted away as all fluids in her body drained out of her.'
Vinanti died in four hours, Mr Wise re- ported.
But, just from a professional point of view, how in hell did he know about the making love? Did he observe it? Hardly, he couldn't have known she was an embryo cholera case and he's not a Peeping Tom. Was he told? Now who would mention a thing like that?
And what has making love got to do with it all anyhow? It adds neither point nor poignancy.
Possibly his qualifications were lost in the bing of the cable, but surely someone re,. Is and asks questions. One reason for the dec,:ne of popular newspapers is, I'm sure, their lack of credibility. And they know it. Deep, deep down, as they say, they're shallow, so that when they get a piece of real news it has to be dressed up. Like a braggart in a pub: 'It's true y'know.'
In the same issue of the Mirror we were offered Prince Philip Uncensored. I'd thought that was his problem. But this collection of banal anecdotes merely indicated that he is human and probably has the same length of bowel as the rest of us even though he it a prince.
Ah well. Better than thigh week and Keith Waterhouse restored some of my faith with his Save-a-Life appeal on the Mirror's Page One the next day. How valuable he must be when the Mirror wants to get in touch with the masses.
It wasn't until Sunday that a real scoop appeared and the Sunday Times had it. I must say 1 often take the Sunday Times for granted—so does my newsagent for he wraps all the other Sundays in it. Sentimentally I'm an Observer man but you have to hand it to the ST, they keep their eye on the ball even if they sometimes hide it in greyness when they've got it. Not so on Sunday. Anthony Mascarenha's eye-witness account was justi- fiably splashed and the Sunday Times earned itself a free plug on TV the night before—a trick they've done before and one which is entirely appropriate to newspapers.
I thought it a bi,t incongruous that their colour magazine was asking 'What happened to the Romans?' but even that was more interesting than the Observer's inexplicable sortie into conservatories. You see I'm not that sentimental.
Meanwhile back in the News of the World, Bangla Desh was forgotten, though that girl Ann Summers had decided to tell all about her sex shops. They weren't hers.
Funny, I often wondered about her. How had she got the money and all that. She's sailed along on a wave of unquestioning publicity. What was I talking about earlier? : credibility. Well possibly the populars lack that but gullibility?—a different story.
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