Peaches Geldof isn't 'real news'? Social media would disagree

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/apr/13/peaches-geldof-real-news-social-media-bbc

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The best thing about the web and its instant way of recording what you're reading on screen at this very moment (clickety-click) is that it also provides a stark reality check. Who wants to sniff over the BBC leading its 10 o'clock News with Peaches Geldof's sad death? Some of the usual suspects, naturally. They don't think the tragedy of a mini-celebrity resonant enough for serious notice.

But push the clock forward 15 hours, to the depths of last Tuesday afternoon, and see what's still top of the digital pops. Yes, Peaches has three places out of the leading five in the Guardian. Only Oscar Pistorius weeping again, my lady, offers much competition for the Times, Telegraph and Indy. And bbc.co.uk would be just the same if it weren't for "Dead piranhas found blocking sewers" (in Telford, as it happens).

In short, it's easy to write plangent pieces bemoaning lack of interest in weighty events. But it's also damnably difficult to find anyone actually reading them. "Sometimes an event will occur that makes everyone want to bury their heads in their hands," wrote Hannah Betts in the Telegraph. But the fate of "young, bright, beautiful, endearingly eccentric" Peaches Geldof provides one of those occasions. "It is not often that one can talk about the public mood with any confidence, but the mood in this case is all shock, sorrow and incredulity."

"Ultimately," added Hadley Freeman in the Guardian, "the reason the public was so shocked is that, even though we may not have known her, we knew her story, and it seemed too sad to end this way. But it has."

Public shock? The public mood? The BBC might not even have mentioned the Geldof story two decades ago, and it's highly doubtful that upmarket papers would have cleared their front pages either. But the message of the clicks puts history in its place.

It's still easy for commentators of presumed education and discretion to groan over the supposedly debased standards of modern journalism (blaming Murdoch, Twitter, Facebook and Paul Dacre in no particular order). And this way, of course, travels the whole privacy caravan as well. The assumption is of cynical celebrity-mongers diverting public attention from weightier matters (the future of Scotland, Ukraine, the planet).

But can we at least register a caveat? The BBC didn't lead on Peaches because of the Sun or OK! It rearranged its agenda after the torrents of clicks and tweets rolled in. The first – obviously intrusive – question was "how did it happen?" Humanity, rattling around cyberspace, was calling the shots. That may not please the shade of Lord Reith (or even the non-shade of Chris Patten). But we are where we are. And, for the avoidance of hypocrisy, we all seem to be in it together.