My attention was drawn yesterday to an article written by Alex Andreou at New Statesman. The article, entitled "Dear Journalists, grow up" is a furious response to some of the admittedly not-very-good arguments offered up by many opposed to Lord Justice Leveson's suggestions on regulation of the press.
The piece was met with universal acclaim. Superlatives from "interesting" to "excellent" were attached to it on Twitter, and I was told - by Sir David Allen Green no less - that should I wish to read but one article on the subject, that this is the one I should read. In fact, if you haven't read it already, you should go read it now. It's OK, I'll wait.
It's a great read, isn't it? It's witty, superbly written, and extremely entertaining. And judging by the number of tweets on my timeline suggesting it was "saying what we're all thinking" - it gives the people what they want.
Unfortunately, it's also almost uniformly nonsense, which for a piece intended to tear strips of an industry for inaccuracy and hyperbole, is a trifle ironic.
For example, Mr Andreou pleads for us whingeing hacks to:
"Please stop saying "This excellent industry is being punished for the sins of the few." My brief experience of your relatively small profession is that most people have worked in most environments with most people. I could link any two of you in two steps, through either a publication or a colleague. You may not all have engaged in questionable conduct, but to suggest you did not know what was going on is risible."
I, for one do not work for a newspaper. I do, however know a good number of people who do - both on nationals and local rags. Quite apart from the ludicrous idea that someone working for the Rotherham Advertiser would have any idea what goes on in Fortress Wapping, by pure dint of them having nominally similar jobs, most of the reporters I know weren't even journalists when the worst excesses of the tabloid press took place.
He goes on to chide the entire fourth estate for whining about statutory backed regulation being the "thin end of the wedge" - adding that we're smart folk, and that we'll be certain to notice if everything gets too 1984. One assumes that next time there's a teeny tiny threat to press freedom, someone like Alex will be on hand to tell us to wait for a slightly thicker part of the wedge. We shouldn't worry though, we'll almost definitely catch it before things get really bad.
Alex makes a passably good point about the pharma industry, judiciary, police and other industries who must all be strictly regulated, lest errors lead to deaths. And he's right. The thing is, when those sectors failreally badly, who does Alex think does the regulating?
In perhaps Mr Andreou's weirdest piece of evidence, he tells a story about the time he was having a "beer with a buddy" who "used to work in the tabloid press" who said, and this is true…
"…the single deciding factor in running or not running a less than well founded story is usually the subject's financial ability to sue."
It's just as well the single deciding factor in whether Alex can get away with defaming an entire industry is whether a buddy told him about it over a beer, otherwise we'd never know.
Finally, Alex suggests, the press should be thankful that they'd be able to get a "kitemark" - which would differentiate their pro-grade work from the amateur etchings of tweeters and bloggers. Don't they know that in most industries, practitioners pay good money for that kind of thing?
So I ask you, readers: Would you feel better for seeing that the newspaper in your hands, the tome at least theoretically charged with the responsibility of holding our rulers, carried a government seal of approval on the masthead? Or would you feel slightly uneasy?
I don't pretend to have the answers, but I'm also not arrogant enough to tell an entire industry which I don't really know anything about, that they need to stop whining and clench. That's just me, though..