As mentioned in the previous blog, Emile Zola wrote J'accuse to expose the real culprits behind the Dreyfus affair. Because of his action the right hated him, but the left loved him. Maybe it was wrong to call him the origin of the power of the media today, but he was definitely a milestone; to what we know and what happens in the press today.
Emille Zola was born in Paris on the 2nd April 1840, he was the son of an engineer and his wife. He grew up in Aix-en-Provence. After his farther died Zola worked several clerical jobs, eventually moving to writing literacy columns for Cartier De Villemessamt's newspapers. In these columns his political attitudes began to show, he was very critical of Napoleon III and anti-catholic. After he wrote J'accuse he fled to England, to avoid his prison sentence, but returned to Paris after Dreyfus was pardoned; and Zola's charge was dismissed. Zola died on the 29th September 1902. Some suspected he died of carbon monoxide poising from someone stopping up his chimney, but it was never proved.
J'accuse reminds me of investigative programmes such as channel 4's dispatches and BBC's Panorama; it also reminds me of the whistle blowing sight Wikileaks. These types of platforms investigate and probe behind close doors to get to the bottom of issues. It is investigative reporting and journalism, like these sources, that challenges authority, similar to what Zola achieved. The news and media are now, arguably, the fourth estate, the first being religion (clergymen), the second being the nobility (politicians) and the third being the common people. The fourth estate of the news and media is now a powerful force within in our society, and arguably has equal if not more power than the other estates. When the fourth estate is working for good it can uncover scandals, point the finger at the guilty and challenge authority; by putting politicians or members of the police under the spotlight. For example the news and media exposed the MP expenses scandal and brought it to the public attention, this was something that had been going on for a while but as soon as public opinion was directed towards the matter, everything changed and inquests were launched and MP's were sentenced to jail. Also recently the media released footage of a peaceful protester being violently pushed over by a member of the police. It was deemed that the protester was killed unlawfully and the policeman involved is now facing a jail sentence.
However the fourth estate can mould and manipulate public opinion in a negative way and exploit and galvanise moral panics. For example the news and media can make allot of noise about Muslims and other ethnic groups and groups like hoodies, and soon public opinion turns against these groups and people start to hate these groups. When in fact it is only the extremists, of these groups, that are the ones ruining the reputation of others in the group. For example I recently saw on the front page of the Sun newspaper a headline stating "Bin Laden was unarmed when he was killed...just like his victims on 9/11 and 7/7". This is not exactly true Bin Laden had nothing to do with the attack in London on 7/7, the people who carried out the attack, at very best, were only influenced by Bin Laden. But allot of people read the Sun and soon that opinion becomes common sense and soon after that it becomes fact, even though it is not necessarily true. I think the media create and hype up these moral panics so everyone gets scared and starts buying newspapers so they can see what is going on, and as we all know bad news sells more than good news.
I think Zola, and his article J'accuse, is a major turning point in the balance of power, before no one would have accused the government so openly, but now it is common practice to challenge the government. The fourth estate, like Zola, can challenge the balance of power and take it away from the government, but is power better in the hands of the news and media? I personally think power is best in the hands of the people.
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