Reporting decline

I always wanted to be  a reporter, and I was lucky to have an ideal tutor, my Uncle, George Dymond.

After serving in the trenches during the First World War George returned to Cardiff where he became a reporter on the Docks Guardian newspaper.

Over the next fifty years, and throughout the 1939/45 war, he represented all the UK national newspapers and press agencies.

When I was a schoolboy he took me with him reporting stories on his ‘patch’, South Wales. We covered everything, from accidents, pit strikes to murder.

I learned a lot, and when I left Cardiff High School at 16, he arranged my first job interview, with the Penarth Times.

That was the start of my twenty year reporting career that included the South Wales Argus, and, like him, the national newspapers, press agencies and my broadcasting with the BBC. We even covered some of the same stories. I was proud of Uncle George, and proud to be a reporter.

But not any longer. I am so angry at the way popular journalism has developed that I am ashamed to admit having been a reporter.

Over recent years press reporting has changed, dramatically and disastrously, in my view, especially with the tabloids.

In my early reporting days the two most popular papers, the Daily Express and Daily Mail were first class, responsible journals, covering the world with excellent, famous journalists, selling copies by the million.

Today, both papers are, in my view, a disgrace to journalism, with daily, 'War Declared’ size headlines, over-the-top reporting and highly paid big name reporters and columnists writing to order.

So much is negative, inaccurate and dangerous. Reporters, myself included, tend to learn a little about a lot of subjects, enough to present ourselves as experts, then to forget about them.

There is no better example than the debacle of Afghanistan where everyone claims  to be an expert yet knows and cares little about the country, its people or its way of life.

Our press are masters at knowing it all and blaming everyone for events and decisions they do not understand.

Typical is the fury at President Biden for the Kabul retreat yet they know and care little of the complexities of that dire exercise.

On a simpler level, the press have devoted countless stories to the life and death of an alpaca, Geronimo, again displaying a woeful lack of knowledge.

One tabloid devoted four pages to it, making a drama of the removal of the doomed animal, with screaming headlines. And, of course, finding someone to blame.

Some heartrending stories, like the case of Madeleine McCann, the child abducted in Portugal in 2007, run for years. The latest instalment published today, prolongs the anguish of her parents.

Is it surprising that I feel feel ashamed of reporters?