I hesitated about writing this column because, as a Brit in America, I don’t like it when my mother country looks ridiculous. (Yeah, I know, the last decade has been rough.) And there is simply no way to write this without making the UK, and more specifically, its media ecosystem, look ridiculous. Sorry King Charles, I tried my best.
So what’s going on? Good question: nobody really knows. But it all started last Saturday when the Sun put out an explosive front-page story claiming that an unnamed but well-known male BBC presenter had been paying a now 20-year-old “more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images”. The British tabloid, which built its brand by featuring topless women on its page 3 for almost 50 years, is not known for being nuanced and restrained. Still, even by the paper’s own questionable standards, the reporting on this was shocking. The Sun rushed out a story suggesting a serious criminal offence, without seeming to possess much of the underlying evidence to support the allegation.
On Wednesday, after several days of rabid speculation, the presenter at the center of the story was identified by his wife as Huw Edwards in a statement made on his behalf —a household name in the UK. Edwards, who had been suspended by the BBC, is now apparently in hospital “suffering from serious mental health issues.”
The BBC seem to have no idea how to handle this or even what’s happening; on Wednesday, the BBC’s Six O’Clock News reported that its star journalist had resigned and then had to swiftly issue an on-air correction. Meanwhile, officers at Scotland Yard have concluded there is no evidence suggesting criminality and the young person at the centre of the story has issued a statement saying the allegations are “rubbish.” The Sun is backtracking and trying to blame everyone else for misinterpreting their reporting. The whole thing is a mess.
It’s a mess, but it’s also a microcosm: the story encapsulates the unique tension in the British media between extreme recklessness and extreme restraint. It’s no secret that British tabloids lead the world in rashness. They tear their subjects apart and no tactic is too underhand. See, for example, the famous phone-hacking scandal that brought down Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World 10 years ago. (Murdoch’s News Corp. also owns the Sun). Or see the 2020 suicide of TV presenter, Caroline Flack, who was viciously ripped apart by tabloids before her death.
I’m not saying the tabloids are always rash. In certain instances, and when it comes to certain people, they demonstrate extreme caution. They may publish every possible bit of gossip about Harry and Meghan, for example, but they are careful about what they say when it comes to rumors about other members of the royal family. That may be because the rumours are complete rubbish or it may be because there is an unspoken agreement in the British media that you don’t publish things like that about high-ranking royals.
It’s not just in reporting about some royals that you see tabloid restraint at work: the likes of the Sun may stop at nothing to drum up drama, but they’re not allowed to say everything they’d like. The reason that Huw Edwards’s identity was a secret for so long wasn’t down to caution by the Sun, it was because of the UK’s rigid media laws.
In the US, you are free to criticize public figures without worrying too much about getting sued out of existence thanks to the Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in The New York Times v. Sullivan. The landmark ruling limits the extent to which public officials can sue for defamation and even protects newspapers when they print false statements—so long as no “actual malice” is involved. If you’re a public official who wants to sue for defamation in the US, you bear the burden of proof. By contrast, the UK has libel laws which are a lot friendlier to the person who has been written about. The burden of proof lies with whoever authored the claim.
Scumbags of various stripes don’t just have Britain’s libel laws on their side, they can also weaponize Britain’s privacy laws to avoid scrutiny. This is particularly true since a landmark privacy ruling by the UK supreme court in February which made it more difficult for the British media to publish information about people subject to criminal investigations. The case centered on a 2016 article by Bloomberg, naming a prominent business executive under investigation by a British regulator. The businessman, known in the legal filings as ZXC, sued Bloomberg, arguing that the media outlet shouldn’t have disclosed his private information because he hadn’t yet been arrested or charged with anything in the corruption enquiry. He based his argument on expectations of privacy afforded by the European convention on human rights, and the supreme court sided with him.
The result of Bloomberg LP v ZXC? A Britain in which it is a lot harder to speak truth to power. Britain is “stumbling toward a system in which tabloids can still peek into celebrities’ bedrooms but serious journalists cannot report on potential wrongdoing at public companies by powerful people,” John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, said in an op-ed following the ruling. “The courts have now presented the powerful with a path to keep their names out of print for years…This right to privacy is only for those who can afford it; strangely enough, these often tend to be those who have the most to hide.”
If you’re an American reading this and are feeling smug about press freedom in the US compared to the UK, then 1) OK, fair. 2) Don’t get too complacent. Conservatives in the US have long been determined to weaken media protections in the US. “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Donald Trump declared in 2016. He promised to change the law “so when the New York Times writes a hit piece…we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected.” Conservatives haven’t managed to achieve that yet, but they’re certainly trying. There are a lot of people in the US who would like to follow the UK’s example and make the right to privacy a luxury only the rich and powerful can afford.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist
