Our desire for information is a symptom of the 24 hour immediacy and availability of news. As a result we want more, faster. Since news happens in real time and events unfold in their own timeframe, our need for data forces us to fill in the gaps, fill the time until something else happens; build on what we know to be fact with information that might be associated to what is unfolding.
But this desire for information, the result of years of constant news and soundbite reportage, has created a dangerous precedent. The phrase “speculate to accumulate” has been lore since man first spent money on something that he planned would make more money. But we can change that now. The more modern version of this, applied to news and opinion forming is “speculate to breed hate”.
In the light of the Terror Attack on Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament on 22nd March, 2017, when new, factual information stopped coming in, the speculation started. A day later, with no information made public about the attacker, reports via the media suggest that the assailant was a known hate preacher – a hate preacher who, it has since been proved, is in jail for hate preaching! And yet people are still commenting on his speculated involvement.
The media appears to jump on such events with an obscene glee, turning a tragedy into an almost macabre circus with its sensationalist attitude and it does no good, nor does it report the events clearly and, ultimately, truthfully.
Commentators such as Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage have been quick to jump in to further their own agendas, political or publicity seeking. Katie Hopkins lambasted the London Mayor Sadiq Khan for not making a public appearance, and decrying the actions of this evil man quickly enough, by calling him "Sadiq Can’t" in a tweet. She, of course, knows exactly why he didn’t or couldn’t respond, doesn’t she? Of course she does, because she was so quick to tell us absolutely nothing. Because she cannot know. Were there security issues involved? Was he advised not to by security forces? But why consider that when you’ve suddenly come up with a soundbite tweet to get you noticed? There was no mention of the time it took for the Prime Minister to release a statement. However, both the London Mayor and the PM have now done so and in an excellent, unequivocal manner.
Farage’s immediate comments on his radio programme on LBC, promoting The American President’s Travel Ban in light of the attack, make the immediate suggestion that the man was an immigrant. He might have been. It is also just as likely that he was born in Hackney. How would your travel ban work then? But just because he has brown skin and a beard doesn’t make him an immigrant. He might be. But until those facts have been released, who are you to deliberately generate hatred and feed the fire of fear? What do you hope to achieve by suggestion rather than fact? Certainly nothing good. It just fits an agenda along with the hate mongers from all areas of the community, whether Abu Hamsa wannabes or Tommy Robbins rage-spewers.
The screaming social media hounds have made their cases, too, leaping on scraps or information and ripping at them with their misdirected, misconstrued, misunderstood slavering; feeding on the inconsistencies, suppositions, speculation and opinion… and it is all hurtful. It doesn’t matter what side of a political or religious fence you lie, if your conviction is such that you cannot abide to listen, let alone understand someone else’s view if it doesn’t tie in with yours, you’re still a bigot. And bigotry allied to speculation and opinion without the full facts is utterly dangerous.
Our modern need for news, to be kept up to date with an immediacy that borders on obsession, forces this supposition and speculation as journalists, with or without agendas, attempt to break the next big link in the story’s chain of events. Sadly, all too often now it seems, at the expense of fact.
Considered journalism, cutting edge reporting, comment and consideration pay no heed to speculation except to report it as such. And to decry it.
The events on 22nd March 2017 are horrific. The pain and loss that the families involved have and will suffer are incalculable and we should rightly send them love and condolences, keeping them in our hearts and our thoughts. The bravery of our public servants, the police and emergency services should absolutely be applauded and supported. They are our heroes. But we do them all a dishonour to jump to conclusions about what has happened and I would hope that we are all aware of the dangers of doing so.
I write this with the available information at 10am on 23rd of March and am absolutely aware that the facts may change. If it is proved that the man who committed these terrible acts, murdering and maiming civilians and a police officer and attempting to threaten the seat of democracy in the capital of the United Kingdom, was indeed an extremist acting on a perverse mission of violence, then that information will be made public and we will deal with the repercussions then. But until that time, this act of terror was committed by an evil man for reasons as yet unknown. He did not act in the name of a religion or a minority, he did not state his grounds for this heinous act, he acted alone. His actions should not be fuel for hate amongst communities already creaking with division.
Don’t take the easy route. Do get the facts.
We are London. We are strong. We are aware. We are not afraid. Nervous, suspicious, angry.
But not afraid.
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**EDITED at 1600 - The attacker was British born and had previously been arrested for violence, although was not currently on the security service's radar - his last conviction was for possession of a knife in 2003. Inevitably Daesh have grabbed at the opportunity to be involved, claiming the now-named Khalid Masood as a so-called IS soldier. Yes, it does matter that facts are treated as a priority above opinion!
8 people have now been arrested in organised police operations from London to Birmingham.
Three people murdered by Masood have been named; PC Keith Palmer, Aysha Frade and Kurt Cochrane. 40 people from 11 countries were injured, 20 required hospital treatment and 7 remain critical. Our sympathy and condolences are with those grieving and injured.
