The Fourth Estate

  “In the garden also; always the thorn.”

  George Macleod’s prayer on the fallen state of creation came back to me as I sipped a chilled beer and watched the sun set over the gently lapping waters of the lagoon at Camiguin Island. A businesswoman friend and I were at The Fish Pen, a delightful fish restaurant overlooking one of the most peaceful tropical lagoons you could imagine. And yet a few hours drive from here in the province of Maguindanao, four days previously, 30 journalists and 27 politicians had been brutally massacred in broad daylight on a main road, their bodies mutilated and buried in shallow graves dug in advance.  Many of the women had also been raped. Esmael Mangudadatu, a politician who intended to oppose the ruling Ampatuan clan in the gubernatorial election, had sent his wife and relatives to submit his papers after he had received death threats from the Ampatuans. He said he thought his female family members would not be harmed. Tropical paradise is never what it seems.

  The effect of the massacre in the Philippines was visible everywhere. I passed a rally organised by journalists in Cagayan de Oro, waving banners and placards proclaiming “Stop media killings!”  A friend told me: “We are now worse than Iraq.” And in a sense, he is right. For a peaceful and hospitable country, the worst loss of life in the history of journalism – ever - is hard to bear.

  The press has been called “The Fourth Estate”. When King Louis XVI summoned his advisers to a summit in Versailles in 1789, he called for representatives of the “three estates” – the Christian clergy, nobility and the common man. Some years later, the British politician Edmund Burke, during a heated parliamentary debate, proclaimed “In the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sits a fourth Estate more important far than they all" - “they” being the Three Estates of Parliament: the Lords temporal, The Lords spiritual and the Commons. 

 We take “The Fourth Estate” for granted. Of course. While the Philippines media were focusing on bringing to justice the killers of their colleagues, 5000 miles away back home I knew our own media would be discussing the latest “celebrity” to be evicted from I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! In Cagayan de Oro (“the city of golden friendship”), people were stopping at the news-vendors on the streets and reading the latest developments in disbelief. In London, I thought, the news would be all about Strictly Come Dancing or some such “crisis”. After all, The Times columnist Matthew Parris is not likely to be shot dead on his way to interview David Cameron; Jeremy Paxman will not find his latest grilling of an uncomfortable politician or the rise of his cynical eyebrow on Newsnight curtailed by machine gun fire from across the desk.  They, and we, are lucky that we can bask in the luxury of trivia, as it is reported to us, and sometimes misreported, in the media.

 But Burke was right and still is right. The Fourth Estate must never be taken for granted. We must never forget that however we criticise the power of the media barons, the Rupert Murdochs of this world who influence how we think and arguably how we vote, we are free to criticise and free too to have our words reported. Press freedom is a wonderful gift and it has been won at a price. In many countries, journalism remains the most dangerous profession.

 In paradise, martial law has been declared. It turns out that the local mayor was behind the atrocity; the Ampatuan family have a history of terrorising any would-be political opponents. (Imagine Boris Johnson being arrested for mass murder and an arsenal of weapons found in his house.) But it is gratifying too that in the Philippines Muslim and Christian leaders have been quick to jointly condemn the massacre, which has hints of religious strife, and continue to work together for peace in Maguindanao. And we will, or can if we so choose, read of such things because of journalists, television reporters and newspapers that describe our world and interpret it for us, thorns and all.