John Linked Romantically to Royal Family!

“Journalism justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarist.”  - Oscar Wilde

Years ago I had a romantic significant other. One of her parents had an aunt whom we once visited for a few days at her home on a quaint village street on the outskirts of London. The aunt was married to a career politician who had once held the post of Chairman of the Greater London Council. He was a stereotypically stuffy but pleasant old school British curmudgeon with whom I delighted in discussing various issues of the day. In his official capacity he had frequently had occasion to meet Queen Elizabeth in social settings and state functions. Ergo: Johnny has romantic links to Her Majesty!

Funny, right? Silly?

Yes, it would be mildly funny were it not for the fact that the above is a fairly reasonable representation of what passes for news reporting these days. An hour ago I heard a report regarding a U.S. politician caught up in a scandal about money laundering. Apparently the man dealt with parties who “have links” to Al Quaeda. What does that mean?

This thing drives me to distraction sometimes, frankly, because it is so prevalent. One cannot turn on the news without hearing of someone being linked to or having links with some individual or ill-defined group. Why do I regard it so negatively? Because it is not news. It is gossip. If A is linked to B then tell us what those links are and let us decide if they are significant or meaningless coincidence . How are they connected - by being co-conspirators to commit some atrocity or engineer some stock fraud? Or do they happen to use the same law firm or  buy their pizza from the same shop?

It may seem a persnickety point but I think it is important. The phrase, when not expanded upon, is simply a pejorative likely to prejudice (and perhaps intended to prejudice) the listener against the subject of the story without any legitimate foundation having been provided. If I am wrong and it is a legitimate journalistic technique then why can I not recall ever hearing a news item start with “George Bush, who has links to Osama bin Laden, today announced….” (George Bush - George Bush the senior - The Carlysle Group - The bin Laden family construction business - Osama)

That rumbling under your feet now and then is not a mild earthquake. It is Edward R. Murrow and H.L. Mencken rolling over in their graves.