Abstract
This chapter considers the notorious case of Jimmy Saville as an example of the way in which power, institutional and celebrity-based, can be exerted to suppress the reporting of sexual crime and victimisation. In exploring this, it traces the way in which the power structures underpinning government and media interact with cultures of misogyny to shape news reporting decisions and, of course, the commercial imperatives of news production in capitalist markets provide the wider context.
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Notes
- 1.
It perhaps explains why Lord Longford in 1971 appointed Savile to his committee investigating pornography. Savile contributed little to the work of the committee (Davies, D. 2014), but this is beside the point since his inclusion on the committee along with six peers, an archbishop, three bishops, three professors, Cliff Richard and Gyles Brandreth will have added even more of an aura of being untouchable. Savile’s victims will have taken note.
- 2.
Scarborough was also home to Savile’s now deceased friend Peter Janconelli, a wealthy ice cream shop owner and an ex-mayor of the town. Jaconelli is someone the police say they would now charge with multiple child sex offences.
- 3.
In summer 2016, UK newspapers began to report an astonishing story that deceased ex-Prime Minister Edward Heath was being investigated for alleged sexual offences against boys. At the time of writing (September 2018), what is remarkable is that the Heath story has disappeared from the UK news agenda. The same can also be said of news stories about a Westminster paedophile ring. The fact these stories have disappeared the news agenda does not make them either more or less unbelievable.
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Cross, S. (2021). Friends in High Places: Sexual Abuse, Power and the Corruptions of Jimmy Savile. In: Ewen, N., Grattan, A., Leaning, M., Manning, P. (eds) Capitalism, Crime and Media in the 21st Century. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56444-5_7
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