If you know of Steve Coogan you know of a very funny man who made his fame as the blustery TV host, Alan Partridge and in movies such as “Tropic Thunder” and “Our Idiot Brother” (don’t hold that last one against him). He’s also a quick wit, a somewhat brilliant impersonator and star of the “The Trip”, a hilarious travelogue of eateries in Britain, featuring tortured but gut-busting imitations of Michael Caine.
Coogan is also making a name for himself as the man who first sued News of the World when his phone was hacked by the paper. Implicated in the hacking is then editor and former David Cameron communications flunky, Andy Coulson. The suit required the hacker, Glenn Muclaire, reveal who at NOTW ordered him to hack Coogan’s phone. Blockbuster stuff, indeed.
In an interview with the Guardian, Coogan expands his take on the scandal, with a view of the media shared by many who have become frustrated with its twisted ethical and moral operational tactics. We could use more Steve Coogans and less Alan Partridges. Alas, today’s media is mostly the latter.
Coogan says News Corp’s senior executives must be held to account for that. “The culture of the people on the shopfloor is reflection of management,” he says. “It always is. So it may be that certain people haven’t committed crimes, but there’s a cultural culpability.”
He believes the hacking affair is symptomatic of a wider malaise afflicting the tabloid press, and believes now is the time to tackle a culture of what he calls irresponsible journalism.
“We all know it’s not one rogue reporter but it’s not even an aberration,” he says. “Hacking into a victim of crime’s phone is a sort of poetically elegant manifestation of a modus operandi the tabloids have.”
and
“What happens in my private life is none of your fucking business,” he says. “I’m an entertainer. I don’t go round saying I’m a paragon of virtue, so that is clearly not in the public interest.”
Nor does he accept the argument that curtailing the media’s freedom to write about the peccadilloes of the rich and famous is tantamount to censorship.
“It serves certain people’s commercial interests to characterise what’s happening as an attack on the freedom of the press and it’s not,” he says.”It’s about responsible journalism. The tabloids operate in an amoral parallel universe where the bottom line is selling newspapers.
“It’s like blaming a scorpion for not being moral. They just sting people. That’s what they do. Sometimes they might sting someone who deserves it. But it’s not through any moral imperative.
“And this idea that for every 20 stories they do about a pile of shit, they do one story that has some sort of nobility to it – I don’t buy it.”
As you can see it’s an entertaining read. There’s a lot more here.
