My attention was drawn to a rather feeble piece of invective that appeared in Finance Week‘s Piker column in their October 1st issue. It suggested that I was in no position to mount an ethical high horse concerning the behaviour of other journalists because my own reputation was severely blemished. It then went on to quote from an article I had written in The Media earlier this year, although it mischievously implied that the article appeared in the Sunday Times.
The article in question, ‘For the Freebies”, was so drenched in unsubtle irony that only a complete moron could have taken it at face value. A short quotation from an article, deliberately taken out of context, is surely one of the lowest forms of malicious journalism – particularly when the coprolitic author of the piece chooses to hide behind the Piker nom de plume. It quotes me as saying of journalism that ‘I’m unashamedly in the game for the freebies—” and goes on to say that this is ‘in pretty stark contrast to his newspaper’s own code of ethics – on which, one Sunday Times veteran has said: Bullard has now pissed”.
After phoning Finance Week’s deputy editor to thank her for the free publicity, I pointed out that as I have no contractual relationship with the Sunday Times and am not an employee of that newspaper, I am not bound by its code of ethics any more than I am bound by the code of ethics of a bank for whom I do some occasional work. I am a mere supplier of freelance words to the Sunday Times and have never been employed by them. And who is this vociferous ‘veteran” of the newspaper? Clearly either a fictional creation or someone so out of touch and ineffectual as to be rendered completely useless as a reliable source of information.
My forensic investigators have drawn a profile of the sort of person who might have authored such a piece. The description of me as a ‘self publicist and boy car-racer”, while completely accurate, indicates someone with low self-esteem suffering from what the therapists call ‘lifestyle envy”. The profile further suggests that the person is probably semi-literate and may possibly be bearing a personal grudge. That brings the list of suspects down to 236 and rising, so the search goes on.
The Piker piece is not intended to be amusing. It is intended to publicly call into question my integrity, just as two similar letters that subsequently appeared in the Sunday Times were. The fact that none of them contain a shred of evidence to support their claims is telling. Their aim is simply to repeat the slander often enough and hope the mud sticks.
Interestingly, there is very little one can do about this because our laws of defamation make it almost impossible to prove damage and, besides, no judge is going to rule that something written in a magazine that reaches .05 percent of the country’s population could possibly have any impact on my professional reputation. As a newspaper columnist, one is in an even worse position. If I react angrily, I will be accused of not being able to take criticism. If I demand a retraction, I will be accused of protesting too much and having something to hide. If I ignore it, then it will be assumed that I am probably guilty as charged but hope that the issue will blow over.
So I’ve decided that the best course is to park the borrowed Porsche in the garage, open a bottle of that Chivas 18-year-old someone sent me, light a complimentary Cohiba and flick through the list of Michelin starred restaurants I need to review next year. Happy Christmas, and may the green-eyed monster continue to mock the meat it feeds on.