Paul Poulton comments on the press, media consumers and the use and abuse of power

Paul Poulton

More ghastly news confronts us with the story that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were kidnapped and held in confinement for a decade. Ariel Castro has been charged with kidnapping and raping the three women.

Because of the stress inducing stories that get reported in the media there is a growing number of people who decide to opt out of listening, watching or reading 'The News'; some of whom used to be news junkies. In fact one of my best friends has successfully avoided The News for about two and a half years. He told me that one day he suddenly asked himself why he listens to all this stuff that someone else deems important and plants it in his brain, where it is left to stew. His life is now more peaceful and he gets on with things that he deems important.

I can certainly see some merit in living a peaceful life and I guess that a number of stories that get labelled as 'news' in some newspapers should come under the heading of 'malicious gossip' or 'political bias'. But in a democracy there is certainly a place for reporting news stories, which is why there is an outcry when a government looks like they are getting near to censoring the press. The press have attempted to self-regulate, particularly in the wake of the death of Princess Diana, but in the UK the newspaper industry has recently rejected a plan for press regulation agreed by the three main political parties in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry. It's easy to see both points of view, we need to know if there is some character assassination going on in the press, but we also need to know if members of the government are fiddling their expenses.

If we have journalists of integrity reporting stories that are in the public interest then we need someone to read or listen to them. Society can then take steps to modify laws or take action to improve a situation or generally learn lessons.

So what lessons can we possibly learn from three girls being held against their will and being subjected to horrifying ordeals on a regular basis? One question that springs to the front of my mind is how can a man lose so much of his humanity that he would do such a thing? People in the middle ages had a picture of demons feeding on the souls of failed humans. When an evil person died the devils would be waiting with a fork, licking their lips ready to dig into another damned soul. We tend not to think of it in that way these days but we can see what they meant, because even human beings do the same. We sometimes feed on people, as if the only reason they are on this planet is to be agents of our own will. As soon as any of us are in a position of power that temptation is there. The egocentric manager at work may feed his inflated sense of self-importance by issuing pointless regulations which make people's jobs harder. Or a celebrity may feed his warped sexual appetite by abusing his starry-eyed young fans because they are in awe of him. Of course there are some good people who can be trusted to be honourable leaders, but how do we know which is which?

This gives us a little bit of insight into why the universe was made the way it is. Imagine for a moment that you suddenly had power to do anything you wanted with impunity, as if you were Bruce in Bruce Almighty. You can do anything you want and have the power to do it with no strings attached and no judgement to face. What would you do? Could you trust yourself to be loving, fair and just? Or would you be tipped over the edge when you saw someone you had an old score to settle with?

But we don't have that much power, in fact considering how much energy there is in the universe we as individuals have hardly any of it. Actually, we are quite poor and almost bereft of any power. We have a little bit but not much. The trouble is that we sometimes use the little bit of power that we do have for ill means. Maybe that's why God has given us so little of it, because we have to show ourselves to be capable of handling power before we can have more of it. Some people plainly abuse the little bit of power they have, perhaps that's what Jesus meant when he said, "Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." Or in the words of another scripture, "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." Whoever lives in this world must start out poor. Even God's Son became poor to live on earth, as the Bible says, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor."

Recently in the UK journalists were eager to report the opposing views within the country about former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, some thought she abused her power and others said she did what was needed while she was in power. One remark struck me as I watched the BBC reporting of her funeral, the correspondent finished his piece to camera by saying, "Opinions in the country are divided but now Margaret Thatcher has gone on to stand before a higher court." Sometimes the people reporting the news get it just right.