• The Inside Line

Shame on us all

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In recent years, journalism has stopped being a profession to be proud of. The rise of the tabloid media has turned the once noble fourth estate into a pantheon of ambulance chasers, while the UK's phone-hacking scandal shone a bright light onto the industry's dark underbelly.

Where once the press existed to inform, now it appears to be little more than a long-winded version of people screaming to be "FIRST!!!!" in the comments section, with no respect for the medium itself or the subjects covered.

I come from a long line of hacks, and the biggest insult you could level at my parents was that they were of the "don't get it right, get it written" school of journalism, writers whose priority was meeting deadlines irrespective of the quality of their output. Which isn't to say that no journalist can ever get things wrong. Like anyone else, reporters are fallible. It's part of the human condition.

But journalism is about informing people. On good days, we can celebrate all that is positive about the human condition, from achievements in the arts, sport, and science, to the successful negotiation of a ceasefire or trade agreement that will have a positive impact on the world at large. On bad days we uncover the negatives, keeping people abreast of corruption in government, of scandals, of the outbreak of war.

What we should never do is speculate, particularly when we are not qualified to do so.

The coverage I have seen in the aftermath of Jules Bianchi's shocking accident in Suzuka has been horrific. Armchair experts attempting to boost their personal profiles with no knowledge of head injuries and - despite working in Formula One - seemingly no knowledge of the rules of the sport appear to have forgotten the most important factor in the entire situation.

Jules Bianchi is a human being. He is a young man whose family and friends are anxious to see him recuperate, who are sitting by his bedside or on the other end of the phone praying that their son, their friend, their lover makes some sort of recovery.

To some, this tragic accident has been an "opportunity" to position themselves as an F1 pundit, to write headlines guaranteed to sell papers and generate clicks, to seek out that promotion on the sports desk or to turn a freelance contract into a full-time gig.

It is disgusting, it is abhorrent, and it ignores the most important element of the entire story: in the middle of all this is a young man fighting for his life. There is nothing more important than Jules.

To speculate is irresponsible, whether those speculations are positive or negative. To offer false hope to Jules' loved ones is as damaging as spreading reports of the blackest of outcomes. To trade a young man's medical condition for your own self-interest is loathsome. To be honest, I don't even know if I should be writing this piece, whether it too can be counted amongst the click-seeking hypocrisy that has me so riled up.

But if you want to support Jules Bianchi as a fan, as a reader, as a human being whose heart is aching at the thought of what he and his family are going through, then try and suppress the desire for more info. Ignore the speculative pieces written by trolls with press passes. There are three sources and three sources only for accurate news of Jules: statements made by his family, statements made by his team, and statements made by the FIA.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Feeds: Kate Walker

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