Reflections on the Mail on Sunday article
by John
I don’t know Melanie Schregardus or her family very well, but I can only imagine the distress that they must have felt yesterday morning when they learned that her photograph was splashed across page five of the Mail on Sunday, accompanied by what could only be charitably described as a twisted interpretation of a blog post she wrote back in November. I’ve been a Press Officer, and I’ve managed Press Offices, and I know the distress that we feel when something we say or do – sometimes a throwaway comment to a reporter, sometimes a line in an email – gets reported and leads to the people we serve being undermined.
In my line of work, though, it comes with the territory. You learn quickly to choose your words well, and you sometimes find out the hard way who you can and cannot trust. I remember on one occasion being dreadfully screwed by a journalist with the Sunday Tribune who took a speculative conversation she had with me and turned it into a hard news story, embarrassing both me and the people I was working for. It stings.
But what happened to Melanie was different. She was not contacted about her blogpost. She never sought the limelight. She doesn’t rely on journalists to “get her message out”. She doesn’t have media relationships. She doesn’t play the game, so to speak. She’s a person who loves her job, enjoys the company of the people she works with, and if you followed her postings on twitter as closely as Luke Byrne cleary did, you would know the deep sense of loyalty she felt to her colleagues.
That’s what makes this so wrong. Technically, I suppose Luke Byrne will say he did nothing wrong. But he knew what Melanie actually thought. He only knew she existed because he discovered her on the internet – on twitter – where the fact that she is an Air Traffic controller came to light because she posted about her feelings and her concerns about what was happening to her colleagues. He chose to write his article without telling that side of the story, and by totally ignoring the real feelings of the person he so callously thrust into the spotlight.
Let’s make no bones about why he did it, either. For personal gain. It’s a great story. It’s just not true.
And he knew it wasn’t true. He did not stop to think what it would do to this person who he had never met and never known – a person, by the way, who according to those who know her is kind, warm, and gentle. He didn’t for a moment think how this would affect her life, her career, her family, or those around her. He didn’t think what it would be like for her today, walking into work with those she is alleged to have abused, whilst he takes his customary Monday off.
It’s the casual destruction that makes me so angry. That article didn’t sell a single extra paper. It didn’t add anything new to the public interest. It’s not a story he will ever return to. It was just casual porn for casual readers, provided at the cost of another human’s well-being.
It hasn’t advanced his career. It hasn’t damaged it either. He filled a page that would otherwise have been taken up with maybe an advert, or an extra article about Brad and Angelina breaking up.
Is there a case for the Mail on Sunday to answer? I’m not a lawyer, but experience tells me probably not. There should be though. It’s not ok to delve into somebody’s life without doing the courtesy of letting them know. If Melanie was a senior politician, or a pop star, or an actress, – somebody who could afford legions of PR people and lawyers, this would never have happened. The Mail would have been told in no uncertain terms that this was a rubbish story, off limits.
But no. Luke Byrne cruised the internet and found a victim. Somebody whose life he could twist into a pointless yarn that advances the news meme of the week.
I hope he’s proud. It doesn’t make much difference, I guess, but it’ll be a long time before I, for one, deal with him again.
Comments
Well put John. Melanie is all of the above, a loyal friend, and gentle, would never hurt anyone. Think Bambi, only really clever and packin’. This article was wrong. This inexperienced “journalist” has a lot to learn.
And where were this guy’s editors?? Supervisors?? Boss??
I enjoy your blog, John.
MM
I am a reporter in NZ and read this with interest. Byrne is an embarrassment to himself and with his flippant idiocy he takes down reporters who strive to accurately report what an interviewee says.
Best course of action is to speak firstly with his chief of staff or section editor before pursuing it through a press council complaint. It will be free and at the very least Byrne will be asked by his superiors what he did and why.
People believe we write stories just to sell papers but those who manage to climb the ladder above Byrne still have an adherence to morals.
Well said Sir. I first heard about this article on Sunday via Twitter. I am glad that Luke Byrne’s shocking and sloppy journalism has been put under the spotlight. I do not know Melanie Dawn either but I am disgusted at how she has been treated. I only hope that justice is served and that she is given a full apology by the Daily Mail. I have not bought that particular newspaper for some time and will urge others not do do so if this callous behaviour is tolerated and goes unpunished.
The article was an outrage and I’m glad someone has spoken out about it. The paper’s denial of responsibility, more or less on the grounds that it had never actually said Melanie rubbished her colleagues, is sheer hypocrisy. They write a poisonous headline about Irish Air Traffic Control Chauvinist Pigs, follow it with the (false) claim that Melanie kept a diary of her friends’ activities – and in the middle of it plant a large picture (lifted without her permission). What is the reader supposed to think? Studied sentence by sentence, it is obviously a cut-and-paste hatchet job to serve the ends of a lazy reporter and to hell with the feelings of the lady herself, her family and her co-workers, but the Mail readers are not noted for their powers of observation, let alone their ability to understand words of more than one syllable. As to further career prospects, Luke Byrne should realise this has gone on his CV and will be held against him in the future – McDonalds are getting very picky about who they employ these days!