EIBF: Fear and folly- Britain's obsession with anxiety and our imperfect media

Fear seems to be everywhere. From terrorism to paedophilia, the past decade has seen the apparent crescendo of a magnitude of threats, apparently plaguing our communities. But how justified are our apprehensions? Do we take our fears too far?

Maria Hyland certainly thought so. Speaking at The Culture of Fear, the Orange Prize longlistee said that society is obsessed with the “frightening”, namely crime and terrorism. This, she elaborated, comes from a desire for perfection that is “grotesquely out of proportion,”- we hope for too much and are scared of things that get in the way.

Joined by Italian author Alberto Toscano, they discussed the bases of such hysteria. Toscano, a sociologist academic by trade, believes that fear, or anxiety towards political difference as he regular referred to it, has been largely “monotonous” over time. Whilst new types of terrorism have emerged, terrorism itself has been a constant, as have wars and natural disasters. Further, he said, fear of objects is often disproportionate- the example used being Belgium’s banning of the Burqa despite its practical invisibility in Belgian society. Often, defensive and conservative attitudes become natural for those protecting the status quo.

Pointing to his country of birth, Toscano added whilst most laws introduced during Mussolini’s reign lay dormant, many had been brought into force by recent governments, highlighting current embattled prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s tendency to use such legislation where it was seen as “useful.”

The pair did not shy away from controversial topics. Hyland believes that Raoul Moat, who recently absconded after shooting his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend and evaded police for days before committing suicide, appealed to people’s frustration. He was a hopeless bloke who “wanted to kill some cops,” she said, and some people could resonate with that.

Though continuity of fear was argued by Toscano, it was highlighted that anxiety towards minority groups has changed over time. It is no longer Irish Catholics in Scotland who are the brunt of discrimination, chair Ruth Wishart said. This had been replaced by Islamophobia. Pondering racial prejudice against Muslim communities, Toscano argued that they are seen as “the other”, with Hyland adding the obvious fact that terrorists were a tiny minority of those 1bn plus people following the religion. Trepidation, they seemed to be hinting, was often fanatical and unnecessary.

But fear seems to be one of the few words that feature very seldom in the vocabulary of BBC world affairs editor John Simpson. Perhaps the most celebrated British foreign correspondent of the past four decades, Simpson was in Charlotte Square to tell his stories of travelling to some of the world’s most dangerous places and discuss changes in the British media.

As should perhaps be expected from someone with a generation's worth of broadcasting experience, Simpson’s delivery was unfaltering, delving into topics from the political history of Afghanistan (the Taliban, he said, are not the threat many make them out to be) and newspaper proprietors (the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian are the only two impressive papers left in Britain, for Simpson, owing to their editorial independence).

His latest book looks at one hundred years of the press and with the exception of technological change (something he still played down), there has been remarkably little change since the birth of the modern media at the turn of the twentieth century. From the Boar War to the present day, he argued, we see film that is often staged, whilst there has been no period in the history of the press when facts were sacred. An early example came in the lack of coverage or understanding of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by the Black Hand in Sarajevo, a key catalyst for the First World War. Simpson said that most information came from local journalists and “not until the last minute” was there a proper account of what was going on in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Perhaps, he pondered, better journalism would have meant Britain did not “sleepwalk” into one of the worst conflicts of all time.

Discussing the influence of newspaper owners, Simpson was also keen to highlight that interference in editorial policy led to a number of British papers supporting or showing ambivalence towards Hitler in the mid 1930’s. Only the Daily Express with its passionate reporters explored the ramifications of the Nazi’s election for Germany’s Jewish population.

Skills no doubt acquired from presenting bulletins on complex political issues to vast audiences across the world, Simpson is an incredibly engaging storyteller. Critical of hands-on newspaper moguls and damning of over-dependence on news wires and press releases, he also manages to interject humour into his informal presentation. Significantly for a man of such stature on the journalistic world scene, he responds to a question by saying that he expects coalition forces to withdraw from Afghanistan with the next 4-5 years, leaving the country to civil war- much, he says, as they have done with Iraq.

Never shy or retiring, Simpson has added both esteem and honour to journalism over the past 40 years. It can only be hoped he has more to offer.