The fake sheikh and subterfuge in journalism
Mazher Mahmood, a journalist that has outed royals, celebrities and drug dealers has been outed himself as a fraud who fabricated evidence and created stories on the back of entrapment of self created crimes. Finding himself the subject of the investigative journalism of Panorama’s John Sweeney in the 30 min Panorama program ‘The Fake Sheikh Exposed.’
Mahmood,posing as a fake sheikh changed the face of tabloid journalism over the last 20 years and was once celebrated by the News of the World as a force for good. He used subterfuge and had his identity hidden to help his work, even in his stories published a picture of his silhouette next to his byline was used.
What kind of journalist was he really, earlier this summer the trial of former X Factor judge and singer Tulisa Contostavlos collapsed, after concerns from the judge that Mahmood had perjured himself, he was immediately suspended from The Sun on Sunday. Contostavlos was accused of setting up a drug deal that was engineered by the fake sheik himself and as the panorama program shows this wasn’t his first rodeo: he’d done this before.
Dozens of people have been sent to prison on the evidence of Mahmood which has now been brought into question, with accusations of entrapment. Three cases relying on his evidence have been dropped already. This raises the issue of how far a journalist should go to get a story, how far is too far and what constitutes entrapment.
In all of the stories presented in the program a celebrity was lured into a situation using a fabricated job opportunity of a life time, then after being offered drugs they were asked to acquire some more drugs for the fake sheikh later on. All of the celebrities in question maintained that this was entrapment and that they are not drug dealers.
Members of the public can argue that if you buy drugs for a person then being exposed is a risk you take, after all a person can always refuse to help, even with the immense pressure they were put under. Many people would say that they would just refuse but all of these incidents involved a small amount of drugs that was found through a friend for someone that the targets were desperate to please.
In my opinion Mahmood made himself nothing more then a glorified drug dealer. In one so called expose he tricked Emma Morgan, a page three model, into buying drugs from a plant, billy, to give to Mahmood. In order to do this he brought drugs from Billy who told Panorama: “The only real criminal was Mazher Mahmood, he gave me the money to buy the cocaine.” His role as an undercover journalist should not let him off of this the way it has.
These type of story finding tactics are exactly what has caused the public to loose faith in journalists over the years. The practice is dishonest and underhand, who knows how many of Mahmoods stories were found this way. For me this completely undermines the role of a journalist and the profession in general.
The fake sheikhs defence of his actions are that he only used legitimate means to obtain his stories, that the criticism comes from exposed celebrities or x co workers with an axe to grind. This is not necessarily true as journalism students like myself and other journalists also have criticism of his practices in obtaining the material he wrote for his so called exposes.
Its a sad day when the only way to report stories is to fabricate them in the first place, going to much lengths to set them up. Almost looking to hang anything they can find or muster up of the chosen target of the moment. With incidents being exposed by his former colleague Steve Grayson, where unable to get the first idea of drug dealing to stick on a target, Mahmood would move to the next thing deciding “well drugs didn’t work, how about prostitutes?”
Where it is sometimes necessary to use fake identities in investigative journalism the fake sheikh took it to far and sullied the practice for other legitimate journalists. Instead of hunting out the truth he was creating situations where he could manipulate the story to take the route he decided and hunt down victims.
If journalism wants to be taken seriously then we have to stamp out practices like this where they are found. Programs like the Panorama up for debate, the BBC News, the Guardian and the Norwegian tabloid Dagbladet have all posted images of the fake shake to help stop him continuing with his work again one day. This is what will help restore the publics faith in journalism when we investigate ourselves and stories where injustice has been done.
References
BBC News, (2014). Call to probe ‘Fake Sheikh’ stories. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29985604 [Accessed 14 Nov. 2014].
BBC News, (2014). Defendants in Mahmood cases contacted. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30332040 [Accessed 14 Nov. 2014].