Words Dept.: entry

The first thing I thought when I heard about Alfie Patten, the “baby-faced” 13-year-old who has supposedly fathered a child, was: Where’s the evidence that he’s really the dad? Surely it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that someone might be seeking to make a financial gain by pretending the boy is the father and selling the story to the Sun. (We live, after all, in an era where a mother can see the advantages in having her own daughter kidnapped because of the potential financial rewards.)

From the Sun’s point of view, prudent journalism might have led to the request of a paternity test before splashing with the story. But no tabloid newspaper is necessarily interested in prudent journalism when the prospect of such an incredible front page photo is dangled before it. So the truth takes a back seat, the right-wing reactionary columnists jump on board and the nation’s politicians wax lyrical about moral decay and “broken Britain”.

And so to the next phase, wherein the News of the World uncovers two slightly older youths who each claim to be the baby’s father. The prospect of a paternity test, instead of taking place behind closed doors in order to prove the veracity of the original lead, becomes the very focus of the story’s next phase.

So where’s the moral decay here? Is it really exemplified by a bunch of misguided kids having sex with each other? Or is it truly on show in the newsrooms of the nation’s tabloid media, where an ugly fight over the details of these children’s personal lives is considered entirely acceptable?