WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.899 I want you to picture a magazine for a second, 00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:06.769 but don't picture something glossy. Like a Vogue 00:00:06.769 --> 00:00:09.429 or a Time magazine sitting nicely on a coffee 00:00:09.429 --> 00:00:11.689 table. No, not at all. I want you to imagine 00:00:11.689 --> 00:00:13.890 something that looks like it was cut and pasted 00:00:13.890 --> 00:00:16.890 together by a bored teenager in a basement in, 00:00:16.929 --> 00:00:21.129 like, 1961. An honestly bored teenager might 00:00:21.129 --> 00:00:24.109 be a bit generous. We're talking about paper 00:00:24.109 --> 00:00:26.230 quality that feels like it might just dissolve 00:00:26.230 --> 00:00:29.469 if you look at it too hard. The ink smudges on 00:00:29.469 --> 00:00:33.679 your fingers. The layout is this... dense, chaotic 00:00:33.679 --> 00:00:37.179 black and white mess that just refuses to acknowledge 00:00:37.179 --> 00:00:40.579 that modern graphic design even exists. Exactly. 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:42.780 And on top of that, this publication refuses 00:00:42.780 --> 00:00:45.240 to put most of its content online. It basically 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:47.759 ignores the Internet. So by all the laws of modern 00:00:47.759 --> 00:00:49.640 media, this thing should have gone bankrupt 20 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:51.799 years ago. It sounds like a business model just 00:00:51.799 --> 00:00:53.579 designed for immediate failure. You would think. 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:57.200 But this is Private Eye, and it's Britain's best 00:00:57.200 --> 00:00:59.259 -selling current affairs news magazine. Which 00:00:59.259 --> 00:01:02.500 is just wild. In 2016, while print media was 00:01:02.500 --> 00:01:05.400 collapsing everywhere else, these guys hit their 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:09.099 highest ever circulation. So for this deep dive, 00:01:09.379 --> 00:01:12.780 we're crossing the Atlantic to figure out how 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:15.060 a magazine that looks like a cheap comic book 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:17.760 became the most feared publication in the UK. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:20.700 And feared really is the right word here. And 00:01:20.700 --> 00:01:22.700 that brings us to the core paradox of Private 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:25.969 Eye. It's a very strange beast. It really is. 00:01:26.109 --> 00:01:28.409 If you open it up on one page, you have, you 00:01:28.409 --> 00:01:30.930 know, juvenile cartoons, spoof letters and jokes 00:01:30.930 --> 00:01:33.209 about politicians being naked. But then you turn 00:01:33.209 --> 00:01:37.250 the page and you find heavyweight forensic investigative 00:01:37.250 --> 00:01:39.950 journalism. Exposing government corruption that 00:01:39.950 --> 00:01:42.150 the serious broadsheets are too scared to touch. 00:01:42.269 --> 00:01:44.790 Exactly. It's like finding the Watergate investigation 00:01:44.790 --> 00:01:47.810 sandwiched inside an issue of Mad Magazine. That 00:01:47.810 --> 00:01:50.230 is actually the perfect analogy. It's highbrow 00:01:50.230 --> 00:01:53.109 and lowbrow at the same time. And to understand 00:01:53.109 --> 00:01:55.090 how it works, we have to look at its mission. 00:01:55.250 --> 00:01:57.489 Although the editors would probably mock us for 00:01:57.489 --> 00:01:59.310 using a corporate word like mission. Oh, they 00:01:59.310 --> 00:02:01.010 absolutely would. They'd probably claim the mission 00:02:01.010 --> 00:02:04.650 is just to serve Lord Gnome. Yes, Lord Gnome. 00:02:05.170 --> 00:02:07.349 We have to introduce him. He's the fictional 00:02:07.349 --> 00:02:09.490 proprietor of the magazine. Right. He's this 00:02:09.490 --> 00:02:12.629 tyrannical, greedy, media baron figure that the 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:15.050 writers pretend runs the whole show. So it's 00:02:15.050 --> 00:02:17.789 a satire of the old press barons, right? The 00:02:17.789 --> 00:02:19.669 Hearsts and the Beaverbrooks of a world. Exactly. 00:02:19.669 --> 00:02:22.009 Every time the magazine raises its price, they 00:02:22.009 --> 00:02:23.830 publish a statement from Lord Noam saying he 00:02:23.830 --> 00:02:26.469 needs the money to buy a new yacht or, you know, 00:02:26.469 --> 00:02:29.849 pay off a mistress. It sets the tone immediately. 00:02:30.189 --> 00:02:33.250 Yeah. Nothing here is sacred, not even the magazine 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:37.389 itself. But beneath that joke, the real goal 00:02:37.389 --> 00:02:40.069 is holding power to account, often by saying 00:02:40.069 --> 00:02:42.419 things that are legally. Very, very dangerous 00:02:42.419 --> 00:02:45.000 to say. Before we get into the lawsuits, and 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.099 oh boy, do we have some legendary lawsuits to 00:02:47.099 --> 00:02:48.800 cover, I want to stay on the visual side of this 00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:50.819 for a moment. Okay. Because I've got a scan of 00:02:50.819 --> 00:02:53.020 a recent issue here, and it really does look 00:02:53.020 --> 00:02:55.860 amateurish. That has to be a choice, right? They 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:57.680 have computers now. They could make it look slick. 00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:00.719 It is absolutely a deliberate aesthetic choice. 00:03:01.039 --> 00:03:03.580 When they started in the early 60s, they used 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:06.060 a printing process called photolitho -offset. 00:03:06.199 --> 00:03:09.520 It was cheap. So practical. Right. They literally 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:13.419 typed the text on three IBM electric typewriters, 00:03:13.580 --> 00:03:16.659 cut the paragraphs out with scissors, and pasted 00:03:16.659 --> 00:03:18.539 them onto a board. So it looked gritty because 00:03:18.539 --> 00:03:21.680 it was gritty. Exactly. But as technology advanced, 00:03:22.020 --> 00:03:24.639 they just refused to update the look. There's 00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:27.539 what you could call a deeply conservative resistance 00:03:27.539 --> 00:03:31.159 to change baked into the culture. But psychologically, 00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.280 it's brilliant. How so? Well, think about what 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:37.520 a glossy magazine signals. It signals advertisers. 00:03:37.860 --> 00:03:41.560 It signals PR. It signals corporate. Yeah. By 00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:43.780 looking like a messy, crowded newsletter, Private 00:03:43.780 --> 00:03:47.439 Eye signals urgency. It looks like a semisdat, 00:03:47.620 --> 00:03:50.000 like an underground resistance pamphlet. That 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:51.280 makes sense. It feels like you're getting the 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:53.340 raw information, not the polished press release. 00:03:53.379 --> 00:03:55.479 Exactly. Glossy pages imply you're trying to 00:03:55.479 --> 00:03:58.240 sell a lifestyle. Smudgy newsprint implies you're 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:00.000 trying to tell the truth. So who are the people 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:02.740 who decided to start this underground pamphlet? 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:04.979 Because despite the anti -establishment vibe, 00:04:05.340 --> 00:04:07.639 they weren't exactly working class heroes, were 00:04:07.639 --> 00:04:09.919 they? Far from it. This is where the British 00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:12.360 class system gets really interesting. Private 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:15.759 Eye traces its roots back to the mid -1950s at 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:18.100 Shrewsbury School. Which, for our non -British 00:04:18.100 --> 00:04:21.540 listeners, is a public school, meaning a very 00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:24.379 elite, very expensive private boarding school. 00:04:24.600 --> 00:04:26.459 Very privileged. We're talking about Richard 00:04:26.459 --> 00:04:28.720 Ingrams, Willie Rushton, Christopher Booker, 00:04:28.740 --> 00:04:31.540 and Paul Foot. They started a school magazine 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:33.540 called The Willopian. And what were they writing 00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:36.019 about? They were just mocking the schoolmasters, 00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:38.379 the traditions, the whole school spirit. It was 00:04:38.379 --> 00:04:40.769 rebellious, sure. But it was the rebellion of 00:04:40.769 --> 00:04:42.449 the insider. And they basically just took that 00:04:42.449 --> 00:04:44.730 same energy and moved it to London. Pretty much. 00:04:45.250 --> 00:04:48.689 They launched Private Eye in 1961, funded by 00:04:48.689 --> 00:04:51.269 a friend named Andrew Osmond, and sold the first 00:04:51.269 --> 00:04:54.060 copies in pubs around London. But the rocket 00:04:54.060 --> 00:04:56.959 fuel came in 1962 when Peter Cook bought the 00:04:56.959 --> 00:04:58.639 magazine. Peter Cook was a massive deal at the 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:00.560 time, right? He was the comedian of that generation. 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:03.519 When he came on board, it gave the magazine instant 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.579 cultural cachet. It cemented the link between 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:09.160 the British satire boom and this new kind of 00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:11.370 journalism. So if we're talking key players, 00:05:11.610 --> 00:05:13.930 we have to talk about the man who's been steering 00:05:13.930 --> 00:05:16.629 the ship since 1986, Ian Hislop. The current 00:05:16.629 --> 00:05:20.069 editor, yes. Yeah. And a man who holds a very 00:05:20.069 --> 00:05:23.550 specific and I'd imagine painful distinction. 00:05:24.290 --> 00:05:27.250 What's that? He is listed in the Guinness Book 00:05:27.250 --> 00:05:30.740 of Records as... The most sued man in English 00:05:30.740 --> 00:05:33.100 legal history. Which is the perfect transition 00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:35.759 to my favorite part of this deep dive, the secret 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:38.259 language. Oh, the code. It's amazing. You can't 00:05:38.259 --> 00:05:40.339 just read Private Eye like a normal newspaper. 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:43.740 You almost need a decoder ring. And my understanding 00:05:43.740 --> 00:05:46.800 is this didn't start as some inside joke. It 00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:49.819 started as a survival mechanism. Precisely. We 00:05:49.819 --> 00:05:51.639 have to talk about English libel law for a second. 00:05:51.699 --> 00:05:53.740 In the U .S., the First Amendment provides a 00:05:53.740 --> 00:05:56.990 lot of protection. In the UK, the laws are notoriously 00:05:56.990 --> 00:05:59.290 plaintiff friendly. So the burden of proof is 00:05:59.290 --> 00:06:02.350 on the publisher. Often, yes. You have to prove 00:06:02.350 --> 00:06:04.550 that what you said is 100 % true. So if you say 00:06:04.550 --> 00:06:07.370 the minister was drunk at the gala and you can't 00:06:07.370 --> 00:06:09.410 prove it in court. You lose huge amounts of money. 00:06:09.629 --> 00:06:12.410 Exactly. So Private Eye invented a whole vocabulary 00:06:12.410 --> 00:06:14.810 to say things without technically saying them. 00:06:14.970 --> 00:06:17.529 Okay, let's unpack the dictionary. If I'm reading 00:06:17.529 --> 00:06:19.990 the magazine and they describe a politician as 00:06:19.990 --> 00:06:23.259 tired and emotional. What are they actually telling 00:06:23.259 --> 00:06:25.019 me? They are telling you the person was completely 00:06:25.019 --> 00:06:29.220 drunk. No way. Yes. Tired and emotional. Sounds 00:06:29.220 --> 00:06:31.360 sympathetic, you know, like stress or jet lag. 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:34.279 But every single reader knows it means they were 00:06:34.279 --> 00:06:36.240 falling over drunk. It's brilliant. And then 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:39.199 there's Ugandan discussions. Yes. That is the 00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:42.060 house code for illicit sexual exploits. Where 00:06:42.060 --> 00:06:44.660 on earth did that come from? It originated from 00:06:44.660 --> 00:06:47.819 a scandal. Back in the 70s, there was an African 00:06:47.819 --> 00:06:50.939 diplomat who was caught at a party, shall we 00:06:50.939 --> 00:06:53.639 say, in a compromising position with someone 00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:56.100 who wasn't his wife. When he was confronted, 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:58.720 he claimed he was upstairs discussing Ugandan 00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:01.579 affairs. That is incredible. So Private Eye just 00:07:01.579 --> 00:07:04.540 seized on it. Immediately. Yeah. And think about 00:07:04.540 --> 00:07:07.220 the legal protection that offers. If a politician 00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:09.360 wants to sue the magazine for saying he was having 00:07:09.360 --> 00:07:12.459 Ugandan discussions, he has to stand up in court 00:07:12.459 --> 00:07:15.300 in front of a judge and the press and explain 00:07:15.300 --> 00:07:17.939 why that phrase is defamatory. He has to admit, 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:20.699 Your Honor, everyone knows Ugandan discussions 00:07:20.699 --> 00:07:23.879 means I was having an affair. Exactly. It forces 00:07:23.879 --> 00:07:25.519 the plaintiff to connect the dots themselves. 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:28.500 It's a trap. They also use nicknames to just 00:07:28.500 --> 00:07:31.879 puncture egos. Some of them are just rude, but... 00:07:32.009 --> 00:07:34.589 I mean, summer genius. They referred to the late 00:07:34.589 --> 00:07:38.009 Queen Elizabeth II as Brenda. And the current 00:07:38.009 --> 00:07:43.009 king, Charles III, is Brian. Brian! It's so aggressively 00:07:43.009 --> 00:07:45.509 mundane. That's the point. It just strips away 00:07:45.509 --> 00:07:47.170 all the majesty. It brings them down to earth. 00:07:47.269 --> 00:07:50.449 They call the Guardian newspaper the Graniad, 00:07:50.589 --> 00:07:54.769 spelled G -R -A -U -N -I -A -D, mocking the fact 00:07:54.769 --> 00:07:57.209 that the paper used to be famous for typos. And 00:07:57.209 --> 00:08:00.319 Piers Morgan. Piers Moron. Subtle. Very. And 00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:03.019 they call the terrifying libel law firm Carter 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:05.439 Ruck. Well, they call him Carter Fuck. Also subtle. 00:08:05.579 --> 00:08:07.540 But speaking of lawyers, there is one piece of 00:08:07.540 --> 00:08:09.519 legal correspondence in their history that I 00:08:09.519 --> 00:08:12.639 think is just the crown jewel. Arkell v. Prestram. 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.180 Yes. Tell us about it. This is legendary. It's 00:08:15.180 --> 00:08:17.420 taught in law schools, usually as an example 00:08:17.420 --> 00:08:19.639 of what not to do, but still. So set the scene 00:08:19.639 --> 00:08:22.660 for us. A plaintiff named Arkell. Had his lawyers 00:08:22.660 --> 00:08:25.019 write to Private Eye. It was a standard threat. 00:08:25.259 --> 00:08:27.500 They said the magazine had libeled Mr. Arkell. 00:08:27.579 --> 00:08:30.220 And the letter ended by asking essentially, what 00:08:30.220 --> 00:08:32.600 are your proposals for paying damages? Which 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:35.080 is lawyer speak for how much money you're going 00:08:35.080 --> 00:08:37.539 to give us to make this go away. Right. And Private 00:08:37.539 --> 00:08:40.120 Eye wrote back. The letter said, we refer you 00:08:40.120 --> 00:08:43.179 to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Prestram. 00:08:43.669 --> 00:08:46.710 Which sounds very official, like they are citing 00:08:46.710 --> 00:08:48.950 a legal precedent. Until you go and check what 00:08:48.950 --> 00:08:51.350 the reply was in that case, the reply in Arkel 00:08:51.350 --> 00:08:55.070 v. Prestram was simply, fuck off. I cannot believe 00:08:55.070 --> 00:08:57.990 that's a real letter. It is. And now we refer 00:08:57.990 --> 00:09:00.129 you to the reply given in the case of Arkel v. 00:09:00.190 --> 00:09:03.269 Prestram is a standard British euphemism for 00:09:03.269 --> 00:09:06.090 a blunt dismissal. It captures the spirit of 00:09:06.090 --> 00:09:09.110 the whole operation. But we have to pivot here. 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:11.559 Because if Private Eye was just a bunch of posh 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:13.960 boys inventing rude nicknames and swearing at 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:16.100 lawyers, it wouldn't be the institution it is. 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:18.659 It wouldn't be feared. No, it wouldn't. The jokes 00:09:18.659 --> 00:09:20.700 are the sugar that helps the medicine go down. 00:09:20.879 --> 00:09:23.080 And the medicine is the front half of the magazine. 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:25.440 Right. The structure is important here. It is. 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:27.580 The back half is the parody in the cartoons. 00:09:27.940 --> 00:09:31.039 Yeah. But the front half is the mulch. It's... 00:09:31.309 --> 00:09:35.169 Dense, serious journalism. Take the column Rotten 00:09:35.169 --> 00:09:37.330 Burrows, for example. Rotten Burrows? Sounds 00:09:37.330 --> 00:09:40.309 like something from the 1800s. It refers to corrupt 00:09:40.309 --> 00:09:43.409 electoral districts. This column focuses entirely 00:09:43.409 --> 00:09:46.649 on local government. Now, that sounds incredibly 00:09:46.649 --> 00:09:50.210 boring. Town councils, planning permission, zoning 00:09:50.210 --> 00:09:52.610 laws. It sounds like the opposite of a page turner. 00:09:52.710 --> 00:09:55.129 But that is where the real corruption happens. 00:09:55.330 --> 00:09:57.929 Because so many local newspapers have died out, 00:09:58.029 --> 00:10:01.500 nobody is watching these local councils. Private 00:10:01.500 --> 00:10:03.679 Eye is often the only outlet reporting on a mayor 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:05.659 giving a construction contract to his brother 00:10:05.659 --> 00:10:08.440 -in -law or a council selling off public libraries 00:10:08.440 --> 00:10:11.500 for pennies. Rotten Burrows is arguably some 00:10:11.500 --> 00:10:13.080 of the most important public service journalism 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:16.360 in the UK. And then you have in the back. This 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:18.820 is the heavyweight section, historically associated 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:21.259 with the great journalist Paul Foote. This is 00:10:21.259 --> 00:10:22.799 where you find the Deep Dog's investigations 00:10:22.799 --> 00:10:25.840 into the Lockerbie bombing, the Paradise Papers, 00:10:26.039 --> 00:10:29.220 tax avoidance schemes, major miscarriages of 00:10:29.220 --> 00:10:32.759 justice. So this isn't satire. No, this is forensic 00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:35.899 angry journalism. It's a weird mix, though, because 00:10:35.899 --> 00:10:38.139 right next to an investigation about money laundering, 00:10:38.139 --> 00:10:40.059 you'll have a column called Nooks and Corners, 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:44.179 which is just architectural criticism. Yes, it 00:10:44.179 --> 00:10:46.600 was founded by the poet laureate John Betjeman. 00:10:47.299 --> 00:10:51.279 It attacks architectural vandalism. It hates 00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:54.580 modernism. It hates brutalism. It hates concrete. 00:10:54.840 --> 00:10:57.460 It fits that conservative aesthetic we talked 00:10:57.460 --> 00:11:01.080 about. They see ugly modern buildings as an assault 00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:03.539 on British heritage. So you have architectural 00:11:03.539 --> 00:11:06.360 snobbery sitting right next to these deep investigations 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:09.379 into government corruption. But doing this work, 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:11.960 especially the investigative stuff, that comes 00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:14.879 with a literal price tag. A massive one. The 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:17.480 magazine sets aside roughly a quarter, 25 percent 00:11:17.480 --> 00:11:19.929 of its annual turnover. just to pay out libel, 00:11:19.970 --> 00:11:21.990 damages, and legal fees. Wait, let's pause on 00:11:21.990 --> 00:11:24.649 that. 25 % of their revenue goes to getting sued. 00:11:25.009 --> 00:11:27.330 That is a staggering cost of doing business. 00:11:27.570 --> 00:11:29.590 It's the cost of free speech under British law. 00:11:29.830 --> 00:11:32.909 And they have had some titanic battles that nearly 00:11:32.909 --> 00:11:35.029 destroyed the magazine. We have to talk about 00:11:35.029 --> 00:11:37.330 James Goldsmith. That was his nickname in the 00:11:37.330 --> 00:11:40.470 magazine. He was a billionaire financier. In 00:11:40.470 --> 00:11:44.289 1976, he didn't just sue for money. He filed 00:11:44.289 --> 00:11:46.710 for criminal libel. I didn't even know that was 00:11:46.710 --> 00:11:49.600 a thing. It's an archaic law. It meant that the 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:51.600 editor, Richard Ingrams, could have actually 00:11:51.600 --> 00:11:54.379 gone to prison. Goldsmith wasn't trying to win 00:11:54.379 --> 00:11:56.399 an argument. He was trying to annihilate the 00:11:56.399 --> 00:11:59.340 publication. So how did they survive? They did 00:11:59.340 --> 00:12:01.679 something revolutionary. They turned to their 00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:03.559 readers. They created the Golden Balls Fund. 00:12:03.740 --> 00:12:06.080 They asked the public to send in money to help 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:08.940 pay the legal bills. It was crowdfunding. Before 00:12:08.940 --> 00:12:11.799 the Internet, yes. And the amazing thing is, 00:12:11.879 --> 00:12:13.659 the readers did it. They felt like they were 00:12:13.659 --> 00:12:15.919 part of the club. They were co -conspirators. 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:18.120 And they had to do it again later, right, with 00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:21.480 Sonia Sutcliffe. That was in 1989. Sonia Sutcliffe 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:24.299 was the wife of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, 00:12:24.360 --> 00:12:26.820 a notorious serial killer. Private Eye alleged 00:12:26.820 --> 00:12:29.039 that she was capitalizing on her husband's crimes 00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:32.190 to make money. She sued. And she won. She won 00:12:32.190 --> 00:12:35.570 big. The jury awarded her 600 ,000 pounds. It 00:12:35.570 --> 00:12:37.450 was a record amount at the time. It was absurdly 00:12:37.450 --> 00:12:39.509 high. And this led to one of the most famous 00:12:39.509 --> 00:12:42.710 quotes in the magazine's history. Yes. Ian Hislop 00:12:42.710 --> 00:12:45.450 walked out of the court, faced the cameras, and 00:12:45.450 --> 00:12:49.429 said, If that's justice, then I'm a banana. Which 00:12:49.429 --> 00:12:51.970 naturally led to the Banana Balls Fund. Exactly. 00:12:52.429 --> 00:12:54.690 The damages were later reduced on appeal, but 00:12:54.690 --> 00:12:57.629 again, the readers step up. But there's one case. 00:12:58.379 --> 00:13:01.200 That I think defines their morality more than 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:03.639 any other. Which one is that? The case of Gordon 00:13:03.639 --> 00:13:05.320 Anglesey. This one is much darker, isn't it? 00:13:05.399 --> 00:13:08.399 Much darker. Gordon Anglesey was a retired police 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:13.120 inspector. In 1994, Private Eye published allegations 00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:16.480 that he had indecently assaulted boys. Anglesey 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.950 sued for libel. And he won. He won. The court 00:13:19.950 --> 00:13:21.769 ruled that the magazine couldn't prove the allegations. 00:13:21.990 --> 00:13:23.929 They had to pay him damages and legal costs. 00:13:24.110 --> 00:13:26.370 It looked like a total defeat. So the legal system 00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:29.429 said Private Eye had lied. Yes, but Private Eye 00:13:29.429 --> 00:13:32.450 refused to apologize or retract the core accusation. 00:13:32.610 --> 00:13:35.389 They paid the money and they waited. 22 years 00:13:35.389 --> 00:13:38.610 later in 2016, Anglesey was charged and convicted 00:13:38.610 --> 00:13:41.629 of those very offenses. Wow. The witnesses were 00:13:41.629 --> 00:13:43.690 finally vindicated. So Private Eye was right 00:13:43.690 --> 00:13:45.909 all along. Did they ask for their money back? 00:13:46.250 --> 00:13:49.460 No. And this is the key moment. His law released 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:51.259 a statement saying they wouldn't ask for the 00:13:51.259 --> 00:13:54.259 money back because, as he put it, others have 00:13:54.259 --> 00:13:57.159 paid a far higher price, referring to the victims. 00:13:57.379 --> 00:14:00.440 That is incredibly powerful. It recontextualizes 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:03.320 the libel payments. It's not a penalty for lying. 00:14:03.480 --> 00:14:05.960 It's a truth tax. Sometimes you have to pay to 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:09.179 tell the truth. Exactly. But we have to be balanced 00:14:09.179 --> 00:14:11.700 here. We can't just paint them as saints. For 00:14:11.700 --> 00:14:14.179 a magazine that shreds everyone else for incompetence. 00:14:14.679 --> 00:14:16.039 They don't always get it right. And when they 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:19.659 get it wrong, it can be dangerous. We need to 00:14:19.659 --> 00:14:22.639 talk about the MMR vaccine. This is the big stain 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:26.220 on their record. In the early 2000s, Private 00:14:26.220 --> 00:14:29.379 Eye heavily supported Andrew Wakefield. He was 00:14:29.379 --> 00:14:30.960 the doctor who claimed there was a link between 00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:33.840 the MMR vaccine and autism. Which we now know 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:36.539 is completely fraudulent science. Totally debunked. 00:14:36.679 --> 00:14:39.259 But at the time, Private Eye ran story after 00:14:39.259 --> 00:14:42.460 story defending him, framing him as a brave whistleblower 00:14:42.460 --> 00:14:44.720 fighting the medical establishment. So they fell 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:47.500 into their own trap. They did. They assumed that 00:14:47.500 --> 00:14:49.799 because the establishment was attacking him, 00:14:49.860 --> 00:14:52.840 he must be right. And that support likely contributed 00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:56.200 to real vaccine hesitancy in the UK. Almost certainly. 00:14:56.460 --> 00:14:58.620 They eventually acknowledged in a very small 00:14:58.620 --> 00:15:01.330 column that Private Eye got it wrong. But it 00:15:01.330 --> 00:15:03.870 took a long time. It showed the danger of being 00:15:03.870 --> 00:15:07.250 professionally cynical. Sometimes the consensus 00:15:07.250 --> 00:15:09.789 is actually right. There's also the criticism 00:15:09.789 --> 00:15:11.950 about who actually runs the place. We talked 00:15:11.950 --> 00:15:14.590 about those schoolboy roots, Shrewsbury, Oxford, 00:15:14.909 --> 00:15:17.590 Cambridge. That criticism hasn't gone away, has 00:15:17.590 --> 00:15:20.450 it? No. Critics. particularly from the left, 00:15:20.490 --> 00:15:23.129 like the socialist worker or trade unions, argue 00:15:23.129 --> 00:15:26.230 that the magazine is still a publication of assiduous 00:15:26.230 --> 00:15:28.610 public schoolboys. They accuse it of punching 00:15:28.610 --> 00:15:31.490 down. The argument being that they mock union 00:15:31.490 --> 00:15:33.509 leaders and working class people with the same 00:15:33.509 --> 00:15:35.889 sneering tone they use for the king. Exactly. 00:15:35.889 --> 00:15:38.490 It's equal opportunity offense. But if you're 00:15:38.490 --> 00:15:40.169 coming from a position of extreme privilege, 00:15:40.470 --> 00:15:43.470 it hits differently. And sometimes they misjudge 00:15:43.470 --> 00:15:45.629 the public mood entirely. The Princess Diana 00:15:45.629 --> 00:15:47.940 cover. The most famous example. Take us back 00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:52.840 to 1997. Diana dies in the crash. The UK is in 00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:55.919 a state of absolute hysterical grief. I remember 00:15:55.919 --> 00:15:58.159 it well. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:00.779 And Private Eye ran a cover with the headline, 00:16:01.059 --> 00:16:04.460 Media to Blame. It showed the crowds wailing 00:16:04.460 --> 00:16:06.700 outside the palace with a bubble saying something 00:16:06.700 --> 00:16:09.019 like, The papers are a disgrace. And another 00:16:09.019 --> 00:16:11.059 person saying, Yes, I read it in the Daily Mail. 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:13.500 They were pointing out the hypocrisy. The public. 00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:16.080 bought the tabloids that funded the paparazzi 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:18.720 who chased her. It was a perfectly valid, logical 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:21.399 point. But it was too soon. The public hated 00:16:21.399 --> 00:16:24.080 it. WH Smith, the main news agent chain in the 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:27.299 UK, which the magazine calls WH Smug, pulled 00:16:27.299 --> 00:16:29.639 it from the shelves. Wow. It was a rare moment 00:16:29.639 --> 00:16:31.940 where their cynicism clashed with genuine national 00:16:31.940 --> 00:16:33.960 trauma. But they haven't stopped taking those 00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:37.240 risks. Just recently, in 2023, they did a cover 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:39.740 on the Israel -Gaza war. Which is the third rail 00:16:39.740 --> 00:16:42.120 of politics right now. The cover criticized both 00:16:42.120 --> 00:16:44.480 Hamas for their atrocities and the Israeli government 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:47.340 for their response. Predictably, they got called 00:16:47.340 --> 00:16:50.259 anti -Semitic by one side and terrorist apologists 00:16:50.259 --> 00:16:53.389 by the other. Which for them probably means they 00:16:53.389 --> 00:16:55.470 felt they got it right. Ian Hislop would say 00:16:55.470 --> 00:16:58.129 exactly that. If everyone is angry, you're probably 00:16:58.129 --> 00:17:00.850 in the right spot. So let's try to pull this 00:17:00.850 --> 00:17:03.370 all together. We have a magazine that looks like 00:17:03.370 --> 00:17:06.430 a relic from the 60s, acts like a naughty schoolboy, 00:17:06.650 --> 00:17:09.970 investigates like the FBI, and gets sued like 00:17:09.970 --> 00:17:13.130 a supervillain. What's the takeaway? Why does 00:17:13.130 --> 00:17:15.710 this thing still exist? I think the insight is 00:17:15.710 --> 00:17:18.190 that Private Eye is a reverse mulch machine. 00:17:18.490 --> 00:17:21.450 It takes the trash. the gossip, the rude jokes, 00:17:21.549 --> 00:17:24.690 the cartoons, and uses the money from that to 00:17:24.690 --> 00:17:28.329 fund serious, expensive, dangerous journalism. 00:17:28.650 --> 00:17:31.490 The humor subsidizes the truth. It does. And 00:17:31.490 --> 00:17:33.450 it serves a function that standard newspapers 00:17:33.450 --> 00:17:35.890 can't because it doesn't care about being respectable. 00:17:36.049 --> 00:17:38.809 It only cares about being true. Or at least funny. 00:17:38.990 --> 00:17:40.490 It's funny you say that about truth because in 00:17:40.490 --> 00:17:43.069 2016, a U .S. lecturer actually put the Private 00:17:43.069 --> 00:17:45.410 Eye website on a list of fake news sites. Oh, 00:17:45.430 --> 00:17:46.849 the magazine loved that. They found it hilarious. 00:17:47.029 --> 00:17:49.329 The lecturer just didn't understand satire. He 00:17:49.329 --> 00:17:51.190 saw a letter from a made -up headmistress and 00:17:51.190 --> 00:17:53.849 thought, this isn't factually accurate. But that 00:17:53.849 --> 00:17:56.009 does raise a provocative thought to leave you 00:17:56.009 --> 00:17:59.579 with. We live in an era of actual fake news. 00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:02.420 We have algorithms feeding us confirmation bias. 00:18:02.500 --> 00:18:05.980 We have deep fakes. In a world like that is a 00:18:05.980 --> 00:18:08.240 magazine like Private Eye, which deliberately 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:11.519 blurs the line, putting a cartoon next to a corruption 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:14.769 scandal. Is that more dangerous? Or is it actually 00:18:14.769 --> 00:18:17.430 the most necessary thing we have? Maybe we need 00:18:17.430 --> 00:18:19.690 someone standing on the sidelines, completely 00:18:19.690 --> 00:18:22.529 independent, just laughing at the absurdity of 00:18:22.529 --> 00:18:24.269 it all. I think we know where Lord Gnome stands 00:18:24.269 --> 00:18:26.789 on that one. Indeed we do. Well, that's all we 00:18:26.789 --> 00:18:28.990 have time for on this deep dive. I'm feeling 00:18:28.990 --> 00:18:31.230 a bit tired and emotional myself. Careful, or 00:18:31.230 --> 00:18:33.750 I'll refer you to the reply given in Arkel v. 00:18:33.930 --> 00:18:36.549 Prestram. Message received. Thanks for listening, 00:18:36.609 --> 00:18:36.789 everyone.