The recent anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy presents a common risk in how such stories are covered. It’s natural to mark the date of all sorts of reasons, but it shouldn’t allow serious questions to subsequently go on the back burner. Much discussion in recent weeks has centred on actions and decisions of firefighters that arise from the public inquiry. Skepticism about such inquiries is longstanding.
They are often seen as white-washers, an opportunity to take a few years to declare that “lessons will be learned” before returning to business as usual while many with true responsibility evade censure.
Two questions are more glaring than any other in this case: who was responsible for the cladding? Why does so little seem to have been done to hold them accountable?
A range of narratives have emerged that distract from these questions. It’s not just the endless questions about what firefighter should have done differently (frequently ignoring the highly flammable cladding they didn’t know about). There have also been stories demonising the victims for “unreasonable” demands or highlighting cases of fraud: people falsely claiming to have been residents who, by definition, were nothing to do with the actual tragedy. These stories have a cumulative effect of pulling focus from the lack of a single arrest or office raid.
It would be naive to think that highly paid PR companies haven’t been working tirelessly on this case since the early hours of the tragedy. It’s their job to have strong connections with the media, to help drive stories that suit their purposes and suppress those that don’t. It seems they have done their job well, and with little scrutiny.
Perhaps the inquiry will eventually interrogate police, corporate representatives and politicians to the same degree the fire-fighter have been subjected to. Perhaps not. If not, then it might occur to the media to ask why. Or maybe someone has already done enough work to prevent any such journalism taking place.
Stephen Durrant
