Do you agree with the view that the key role in uncovering political scandals and controversies has been played by journalists?
Although journalists have been recognised as playing a key part in uncovering scandals, the majority of them have actually been sexual scandals rather than political scandals. This includes such events like the Profumo affair, Boothby and Squidgygate, which were all sexual scandals.
Source 4 shows evidence for agreeing with the question. This is shown when it is written that Tam Dalyell, a labour MP was ‘quick to praise the role of the press’. This shows some evidence that the press were key due to it establishing that they ‘would not be in this position’, with this position being that of uncovering the Belgrano scandal. Source 5 partly coincides with this statement, saying ‘very little was heard’ until ‘ Sunday Times argued that the ship was not a direct threat’. Source 6 also shows evidence that ‘it is clear that journalists have played a key role in drawing attention to corrupt politicians’.
Source 6 mentions that the ‘Guardian have been assertive’ towards the uncovering of political scandals. This is evident in the Cash For Questions affair. The story originates from the Guardian quoting Al-Fayed, saying that he had approached the paper and accused Ian Greer of paying Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith to ask the parliament questions on his behalf for £2000 per question. Both Hamilton and Smith denied the charges, but between 1996 and 2000, court cases were held and both were found liable to what they had been accused of. This soon sparked the investigations of several MPs within the parliament and resulted in the reformation of Bill of Rights (the action being called The defamation bill). This event shows us that the press were key in the unveiling of political scandals. However, Source 4 also shows evidence for it disagreeing with the statement. Although it said that Tam Dalyell was ‘quick to praise the press’ it mentions beforehand that it was in fact ‘Mr Ponting who passed secret documents’ to Dalyell, rather than a press effort as Mr Ponting was just a civil servant. This is backed up with part of source 5 as Ponting says that ‘I decided to post the documents’. The use of the 1st person ‘I’ shows that he had no help in deciding this action, and so it was not the press who unveiled this scandal. This is further backed up in the centre section of source 5 as the ‘press campaign had failed’ and had not revealed the scandal with enough solid evidence due to the ‘government successfully blocking the enquiry’.
Operation Flavius was revealed by a documentary crew rather than a journalist of any sort. The TV show, known as "Death on the Rock", was a television documentary produced by Thames Television. The documentary examined the deaths of three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988 at the hands of British special forces. The programme was condemned by the government and they attempted to postpone the series. In fact, rather than helping to spread the scandal, newspapers attempted to undermine the evidence provided and Thames Television hosted an independent enquiry. This enquiry was called the Windlesham-Rampton report and it found that, barring two exceptions, all evidence was portrayed correctly, proving once more the corruptness of the British Government
Before making a conclusion, we must analyse the nature, origin and purpose of the sources to discover how reliable the source truly is. Source 4 is from the Daily Mirror, a left party who supported labour. Because of this, it is evident that they would want to put Tam Dalyell, who was a labour MP, in the best light possible. Furthermore, a right wing prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, was in power during the incident, so they would want to make it sound like he was a hero rather than someone who opposed the government. They would also wish to make themselves sound high and mighty when they describe theDaily Mail as it is their own newspaper. This was published on the 12th of February 1985.
Source 5 is from Clive Ponting, the civil servant whom gave the documents to Tam Dalyell. Therefore, he would want to make himself seem like the hero of this escapade, hence his reluctance to give the press too much credit, but rather saying they were ‘failing’ with their campaign and needed his help. Furthermore, it was also published in 1985, to possibly get his side of the story out as soon as possible.
Source 6 is by John Thompson, whom wrote the book ‘Political Scandal’ in 2000. The purpose of this book was to sell rather than give a specific view point to the case and so would not feature any evidence of one sidedness (I did not use bias.. just saying). This makes it a very reliable source towards answering the question
On balance, I conclude that the press did play a pivotal role in uncovering political scandals due to the fact that they were always the ones who spread the word of any scandal very quickly. I still stand by this conclusion even when the majority of press revealed scandals are to do with sexual subjects rather than actual political subjects due to the fact that the most of the political scandals discovered post-satire were thanks to investigative journalists and the press.