Imagine if The Sun had printed an expose "Jimmy Savile is a Paedophile".
Imagine it had taken the sworn word of several young women victims, gone against the legal advice (for it would have been No!) like the Daily Mail did over naming the Stephen Lawrence killers, and printed the sort of allegations that have been aired this week in the wake of ITV's brave documentary.
Imagine then the carnage of the subsequent court case, where £750-a-hour barristers expertly tore to shreds the reputation of the paper's frightened and less-than-sophisticated witnesses, poring over the most minute detail of the sexual history of the disturbed young kids Savile had expertly targeted, while smiling benign old Jimmy sat in the dock in a purple shellsuit and waited to bring on the succession of character witnesses including royalty and former prime ministers to defend his honour.
Finally, imagine the record size of the libel damages - and then what play the whole miserable saga would have got from Lord Justice Leveson and his acolyte Mr Robert Jay QC at his subsequent Inquiry into the press.
Because, if Leveson was willing to give courtroom space to 20-year-old allegations from Anne Diamond, the whinings of the gruesome Max Mosley, and untested unsubstantiated wild claims from a prostitute-using fading actor, just think what airtime he would have given Saint Jimmy.
And that, in a nutshell, is why His Lordship is going to ensure that a whole load more Jimmy Saviles are going to get away with evil in the future.
Because Post-Leveson the British press are simply going to be too frightened to even risk that kind of expose any more.
As I've chronicled before, the chilling effect of Leveson-fear is already evident in our taboid and mid-market papers. In my very first Huffington Post UK blog on 22 August this year I warned:
"Stories about disgraced MPs, high society vice rings, cheating married celebrities, philandering tycoons, have all but disappeared from the papers. Not because they're not there - trust me, they never go away - but because even if you can get them past the lawyer you are still to scared to try and get them past His Lordship."
The Jimmy Savile story - or rather, the lack of it - is the perfect example of that. And I could tell you many more from a 35-year-career in national tabloid newspapers. The top Cabinet Minister and the rentboy? The MP who loved child pornography? The mega-rich tycoon and the (very young) shopgirls? The MP and the 13-year-old girl? The "superstud" telly star who secretly prefers guys? The supermodel super-hooker (only £25,000 a night, folks)? The sex-pest "sex-bomb" actress who no woman who knew her dared get into a lift with?
Untold stories like those around Fleet Street are legion. All the stories above - and many more - were investigated by newspapers. Talented, experienced reporters dug away for weeks or months, Large amounts of money were expended, expert legal advice sought and considered, risks agonised over....and ultimately all the stories above were spiked because the newspapers just didn't believe they could win in a libel court. Creatures like Savile trade off that. Lord Justice Leveson will give them succour.
There's been much chatter on Twitter this week suggesting that somehow the tabloids failed in their inability to bring Savile to book, despite the fact that rumours about him and young girls were very widely known indeed. They failed for the reasons above. But at least journalists did have a go.
Sadly, post the Leveson Inquiry, I really doubt that they'd even risk it now. Could an Editor survive losing such a legal case as I've described with their job intact? The News of the World lost the Max Mosley case because a judge ruled that it wrongly added an untrue twist to what most right-thinking people would still believe was disgusting and perverted behaviour. Yet Mosley has managed to convert himself into some noble folk hero in some quarters, to be listened to respectfully at Leveson while experienced and sensible newspaper executives were barely tolerated. Would newspapers even risk a Mosley-style investigation now, knowing the hunger currently abroad to do down the tabloid newspaper industry?
Who would risk putting their job, their newspaper, on the line now to give a voice to the victims, the down-trodden, the abused - the people that the Jimmy Saviles, the Gary Glitters, of the world prey upon?
Lord Justice Leveson insists he believes in Press Freedom, but... It is now a very big But indeed. Because many Editors and proprietors awaiting Leveson LJ's report next month on their industry with great trepidation are now feeling it is just not worth the risk any more to even publish such stories. In which case, why even bother investigating them?
Which, for the Jimmy Saviles of this world, is very very good news indeed.
Follow Neil Wallis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/neilwallis1
See:
http://www.storylane.com/stories/show/1107267206/a-free-press-leveson-and-saville
both for a take on this and another place to express your views when writing to a British newspaper is no longer an option
We haven't had a free press.
The media is to a large degree owned by individuals who's own interests and pursuit of power overide editorial independence and the public interest.
I for one am not interested in the sexual proclivities of celebrities, (providing they only involve other consenting adults), not interested in their diets, not interested in long lens pictures of them topless or the rest of the trivial tittle tattle that is passed off as news.
I am interested in the exposure of corrupt, exploitative politicians, journalists, newspaper proprieters, police, public servants and entertainers.
If we had a free responsible press that believed in honesty, integrity, respect for the rule of law and the respect of others, there would be no need for a Leveson inquiry.
The Sun spent 40 years and continues to print salacious nonsense and it's proprietor has very deep pockets. If one organisation could have properly investigated Savile and used proper journalism to expose the truth it's News International. Neil, don't talk tosh
And imagination is what you'll need because they didn't. And they didn't for 30-odd years, well before Leveson. Instead they chased adulterous politicians, targeted the families of crime victims and dredged up celebrity "fat" photos. They concentrated on petty immoralities because actual crimes committed by the influential and popular, were too risky to investigate.
So, it would appear that Leveson is hardly likely to stop them doing something they never had the journalistic cajones to do anyway.
Look at the power of a newspaper tycoon to choose government, which is an overriding power above that of the Queen. Will the news of the World publish anything against the Murdocks ?
In this country damages need to be proven and is limited so really there is a safeguard against frivolous actions. You may be able to buy big lawyers to gag victims but the public at large will deliver its verdict on you. Once the word is out it is like an egg that dropped on the ground and broke you can never get it back into the shell not in the original shape and natural arrangement. So the Africans say any way. “No smoke without fire” will rattle in peoples’ minds.
I think there is a little vindictiveness in this piece and just a little short of emotional black mail
Mr Savile was a member of Mensa, so he was no fool. I suspect, after seeing how, in my opinion, he milked his charity work for all it was worth, that he was astute enough to know he would get away with it. I also suspect he was not only powerful,but an arch manipulator too. Which is probably why these allegations waited until now. Others were aparrantly hushed up at the time. [see Sunday Times 7th Oct]
Milking his charity work? Well, how do you describe someone walking round the hospital in a doctors coat saying 'my hospital, my patients? When Stoke Mandeville spinal unit was rebuilt and the publicity died down, we then saw him yet again in a doctors coat at Broadmore, claiming the inmates were 'My guys'. It could be said that he used the marathons to not only raise money but to keep up his own profile. So yes he did some good work, but he also made sure he got all the glory too. It was Savile who showed foreign dignitry's round the new unit, not the doctors. He wasn't a saint, he was a self promoting megalamaniac lol.
The words will never sound the same again..
Leveson will prevent journalists from investigating because Lord Leveson might ban them from acting in a criminal fashion to expose tawdry affairs of tawdry celebrities.
The media does not create celebrities or encourage young people to emulate them or give them publicity when they have relationships with the same celebrities.
This article continues the unacceptable face of journalism, it judges the individual guilty without the basis of facts or evidence; it ignores its own role in creating a celebrity culture and worst of all it seeks to use reporting of what may be criminal acts as an argument to prevent an inquiry from potentially suggesting that criminal acts should only be justified in journalism when there is a real public interest defence as opposed to a made up public interest by an editor in order to sell the paper.