PUB TALK AND PUBLIC TALK

It does not always practice what it preaches

A while ago I went on an organised visit to the Guardian newspaper. It was na interesting visit  to my favoured newspaper but what it reminded me most of all was when I worked for the civil service. Both organisations had a policy of only admitting those who had a pass to enter the buildings they used - temporary ones were made for us but had to be surrendered on departure -   and both liked to conduct their conversations in private without allowing the public to listen in.

We saw the room where the big decisions were made: what the paper would lead on and who would write for it, I presume. It would have been relatively simple to set up a video link which would have allowed people to listen in to these conversations but there was never any suggestion that this would take place or be a good idea. Unsurprisingly, the Guardian likes to make its decisions in private without any real input or interference from outside.

 

Yet the newspaper has also been a supporter of Julian Assange who seems to think that no-one should be able to have a conversation in private any more. He has made it his mission to reveal to the world what government agencies want to keep secret and he seems, to me at least, to feel that any conversation that is kept private inevitably results in the deception of the people on whose behalf the resulting decisions are made.

 

I had a brief and fairy inglorious career as a civil servant before I became a tourist guide and we were always told that decisions made in government should be shared with the public, who after all paid our salaries, but that these decisions should always be made in private. An old salt, who was my mentor and considerably more experienced in the workings of government than I ever became, said that just considering an option, which was later rejected, would soon be leaked to the media and presented as government policy by organisations with an axe to grind. Better to make the decision and present it as a fait accompli. You could always change your mind later if the brown stuff hit the fan and created a widespread stink. Roy Jenkins said that conversations about policy should always be held in private. It was effectively impossible to make a good decision if too many people were involved in it from the outset.

 

Like the government The Guardian, which is a champion of free speech, effectively does this by maintaining a very private world behind closed doors in its offices. They need to have conversations along the lines of: ‘That Polly Toynbee is over the hill nowadays. We need to get rid of her to allow a few new writers in.’ or ‘Giles Fraser believes in God and yet the vast majority of our readers are atheists. Why are we persevering with him.’  Judging from the contents of the paper, the first conversation had either never been had or quashed, while the second one resulted in Fraser, one of my favourite writers leaving. (He can now be read at unherd.com.)

 

The fact is that, if these conversations were held in public, then those taking part would censor themselves from going on the record and change their contributions accordingly. No-one would wish to be identified publicly as a Fraser or a Toynbee hater. The results would that the real conversations on the future of the paper would be transferred to somewhere private, which I will call the pub. In a pub conversation - probably with the help of alcohol - you can put the word to rights. In the cold light of day you need to take into account what other people want to achieve. So in a public conversation, you do so and adjust your sights accordingly.

 

The problem is that  keeping conversations private means that you allow and, indeed, encourage cover-ups. It is simpler to bury bad news than share them. People will not be harmed by stuff they do not know about so why not keep them ignorant - and happy. Thus incompetence, immorality and all manner of things we should know about are kept covered up along with simple decision making if everything is kept private – at least for sufficient time before they are released to the public, many of whom will have died before they know what was done in their name and at their expense to further a cause they may support but not with any or all methods available, many of which they may dislike and disapprove of.

 

How to square this circle? To keep decision making private but to expose immoral behaviour that could prove embarrassing to those authorising – or at least not forbidding – it. We will probably never do so satisfactorily but that does not mean that we should not try. The need to make decisions in private, without too many peering eyes on you, may be vital but so too is the necessity for exposure of cheats, liars and those who are prepared to break the law to further the aims of the people they are supposed to be protecting. For that we need a free press, a vital safeguard to help to uncover what might otherwise be the embarrassing secrets of government. We need, in fact, newspapers like the Guardian, who do not kowtow to a government's need and preference for secrecy but are always prefer to reveal what they are trying to keep secret.

Edwin Lerner

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com