During the 2001 general election campaign, there was just one day on which I managed to persuade the Daily Star to lead the front page on politics. “BRITNEY BACKS BLAIR” ran the splash headline. This was based on the fact that Britney Spears, or more likely her spin-doctors, sent me a signed photo as the campaign began with the message “Good Luck”. She was big then, because she was a huge talent dominating a crowded global pop market. She is even bigger now, for all the wrong reasons.
As she was taken to hospital again yesterday, I googled “Britney Spears”. Within 0.11 seconds, up popped 81,500,000 results. I wondered how that compared with other well-known public figures. George Bush - 27,700,000. Tony Blair - 11,900,000, just ahead of David Beckham at 11,800,000, well ahead of Gordon Brown at 4,840,000. Even in the celebrity era, it reveals an extraordinary measure of fame.
The reason I received the photo and the good luck message (followed later by a framed memento of her multi-platinum sales of Oops I Did it Again) was that I had been “outed” as a Britney fan when spotted by The Guardian at one of her concerts eight years ago.
A few days later, as I recorded in my diary: “I was the subject of considerable piss-taking over the photo in The Sun of me arriving at the Britney Spears party, clearly trying not to be seen.” I had been invited to meet her but there was a really unpleasant atmosphere, largely created by her evident anxiety, and the huge entourage of minders, PR people and all-purpose hangers-on feeding it.
When a freelance photographer told me, just as I was being led to the presence, that he had been lined up to get snaps of me getting my “five minutes with Britney” I had one of those “What would your mother think?” moments, and left early.
Advertisement
She had a real talent and appeal, and I, as someone who genuinely likes pop music, still find her popping up in the “25 most listened to” on my running iPod. But where once she inspired a sense of vitality, now it is hard to feel anything but pity.
There are some people so famous, so much the focus of media attention and public conversation, that they cease to be viewed by many as human beings. Britney has joined them. She is a news commodity, stories about whom are so marketable that the true ones are gorged upon and, when the true ones dry up, the invented ones keep the market moving along nicely.
Diana, Princess of Wales, was in the same league and even in death, as the current farce at the High Court shows, she remains there. David and Victoria Beckham are there too, but handle it better than most.
In some sections of the media, Madeleine McCann and her family are there. As I said in the Cudlipp Lecture on Tuesday, her disappearance was an interesting and important story, the stuff of every parent’s nightmare. But it quickly became a commodity in which most of the media got close to hysteria, and some have remained there. Let us not pretend the coverage was driven by concern for the child - there are many missing children - or compassion for the parents - certainly not once the mood shifted - or regard for the truth. It has been the worst example of recent times, on a par with Diana, of some newspapers thinking that the word “Madeleine” sells, and finding literally any old nonsense to keep her name in that selling position on the front.
There is a view among some journalists that goes as follows: Britney Spears wanted to be famous, Princess Diana wanted to be Queen, the McCanns wanted help with finding their child, the Beckhams want to be a global brand, politicians want to be elected; they all use the media; so they have to take whatever downside comes along.
Advertisement
The question is whether there is any room within media judgements about what is news, and how to pursue it, that allows room for a basic humanity about the condition of the people who are the media commodities. You do not have to be a qualified psychiatrist to see that Spears has serious mental health issues. Does there ever come a point where a judgment forms that says, let’s just leave her alone? Even as I pose the question, I can hear the weary sighs of hard news men and women wondering whether I have gone soft. I can imagine, too, the shrugs of all those with a vested interest in the Britney industry being maintained as a great soap opera that still sells her music, her videos and all the attendant paraphernalia.
But being a hard-nosed journalist or businessman does not require you to suspend basic humanity. There were times when I felt Tony and Cherie Blair were moving in the media mind towards that Britney/Diana/Madeleine/Beckham group. Once or twice, I felt myself on the receiving end of a form of journalism utterly devoid of humanity. It is why I despise, and single out, the Mail Group.
I recall too when the former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies had his “moment of madness” on Clapham Common. At the end of a horrible week, I did the weekly briefing for the Sunday papers. They would not let go. Eventually I lost my temper and said: “You lot won’t be happy till he’s topped himself.” One or two immediately went off and wrote that Tony Blair was concerned that Ron Davies would commit suicide.
I’ve just googled “Britney Spears and suicide”. 532,000. It’s sick. She’s sick. But perhaps the phenomenon is beyond healing.
Advertisement
Alastair Campbell is a former director of communications and strategy at 10 Downing Street