Just in case we think the matters being addressed by Lord Leveson are original or uniquely British, I have just dug out Heinrich Böll‘s scathing attack on (what we refer to as) ‘tabloid’ excesses in Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honour of Katherine Blum). Published in 1976 – one of the first German books I ever bought – it deals with how a tabloid newspaper destroys a young woman’s reputation and life.
Exaggeration, intrusion, misrepresentation, abuse, commodification of a person as entertainment: it is all there.
The disclaimer in the German edition is biting (Bild being the German equivalent to the Sun or News of the World):
Characters and events in this story are invented. Should the description of particular journalistic practices betray similarities to the practices of ‘Bild’, such similarities are neither deliberate nor accidental, but merely inevitable.
April 18, 2012 at 11:39 pm
Nick, Did you know Leonard Cohen is playing the Hop Farm in Kent 8. 9/12
Tickets on sale Friday.
Thought you might be interested
April 20, 2012 at 11:42 am
What an amazing coincidence – or divine providence! I went on the website to see about the St John Passion on Sunday, and came across The Lost Honour of Katharine Blum. Talk about Lost – I have been looking for the title of this book/film ever since I saw the film at home – a DVD someone else had chosen from the local video hire shop, which I paid little attention to at first until suddenly I sat bolt upright and thought, I have never in my life seen anything as good as this.
Because our lives were in turmoil at the time, everything got lost or muddled including my memory – but every now and then I think of that film and wish I could even remember one word of its title so I could look for it on Google or something. Am off to do a search right now – and might even get the book, now that I know there is one. Thanks a million – and BBC or C4, please show this film AT ONCE, and repeat several times. Also please do not do that annoying thing where you cannot watch it on iplayer but only live on an actual TV. Thank you.