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HPtFtU

Dear MediaNet members

This week Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and six others are on trial at the Old Bailey facing a series of charges in connection with phone hacking.  Three of their former colleagues at the News of the World have already pleaded guilty. This is bound to be a long and revealing trial. The most eye-catching moment so far is the revelation that Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were having an affair during the time when they were running the paper.  

The ongoing court cases against several dozen journalists will have a direct impact on hundreds of others: their families, children, colleagues and friends. Brooks is married and has a daughter aged 18 months. Coulson is also married and has two children. Whatever else we may discover during the trial, and whatever the eventual verdict may be, their lives have been irrevocably scarred. This whole episode is a low point in the reputation of the UK press, but it is also a series of personal tragedies. This isn’t only about phones being hacked or police being bribed – though those things certainly matter. It is also about careers being terminated, marriages torn apart and children left in broken families.  

One of the distinctive ideas that Christianity offers the world is the notion of sin.  Sin helps us to understand what the writer Francis Spufford calls “the human propensity to f**k things up” (or HPtFtU.)* It is "our active inclination to break stuff, 'stuff' here including moods, promises, relationships we care about and our own well-being and other people's." Nobody becomes a journalist with the aim of harming vulnerable people, just as nobody who gets married means to betray their partner or hurt their children. But we know from experience that HPtFtU makes us fall into sin, run into it, and tumble headlong into it. We also know that once we have chosen sin, its impact multiplies like weeds in an untended garden. HPtFtU is universal, so not one of us can afford to gloat over the downfall of newspaper executives, celebrities or anyone else. Failure is not an experience that is reserved for a powerful or malevolent few. It’s universal. That’s not to say that we can’t help ourselves. It’s just that most of the time we don’t.

Much of the debate over the implementation of the Leveson recommendations has been about whether new legal powers are required to curb the excesses of the press, or whether a change in the culture of the industry will fix the problem. This week a Royal Charter has been issued creating a framework for press self-regulation. Every publication so far has rejected the charter, saying effectively that they will make the necessary reforms themselves – like a child caught misbehaving who promises that they will be good from now on.  
 
There was intense discussion about the balance between the need for regulation and culture-change at last week’s Church and Media Conference. Sarah Teather MP was one of those who introduced a third concept that has been largely absent from the debate. She spoke about virtue amongst journalists, politicians and public servants.  Virtue is the Human Possibility of Doing Things Right.  HPoDtR depends on individual the choices we make. Crucially, Christians believe that it depends on empowerment from beyond ourselves; for as St Paul says in Romans 7:17 “I need something more!  For I know the law, but I still can’t keep it.”  (The Message)  

Until we look the notion of HPtFtU squarely in the face none of us will discover HPoDtR. We are not exempt from the sort of human tragedies that are unfolding in the families of Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and their colleagues.  We should pray for them, and for everyone who has been harmed by their actions.  And we can thank God that we are not helpless.  As St Paul said, “I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does.”

Unapologetic by Francis Spufford is published by Faber


That’s all for now.  Do keep in touch.

Andrew