Ignorance last empire to fall

Doctors are saints, lawyers are smart, teachers are martyrs, journalists are scum. We have no illusions.

In my case, an ongoing niggle sparked into a brief, homicidal rage when during a girly lunch, a woman who is possibly the most ill-informed, slothful creature on earth paused dramatically and asked of no one in particular: "Are we off the record here?"

Well, yes, I took it personally. Being the only piece of scum in the company, I was clearly the only one congenitally wired to be a 24/7 snoop, to break a confidence, to be criminally thick enough to race to the loo with the mobile and yell at the news editor to hold the front page for the immortal headline: "Blameless bride of pratty, possibly slightly crooked politician seen playing quite competent game of bridge."

I held my peace. Lunch lady lives. She is merely one of many, deluded that their nuggets of information will leave you deranged with fascination.

But that brand of off-hand rudeness on social occasions, where occupation is incidental, is a constant source of bemusement to someone bred to placate and pour the tea.

"You're a journalist? So you're one of THEM," they shriek, recoiling theatrically. "Be careful what you say to that one," warns the breezy host. "Never read it/Only buy it for the crossword/Nothing in newspapers - such a shallow medium don't you know/Sure you make up half the stuff anyway," sniff his guests cheerfully, secure in the prejudice that if you're a journalist, you have the hide of an armadillo, total job security, no discretion, no professional self-respect, no regard for colleagues, no concept of hard work, and no notion of ethics or loyalty. And this, mind, is meant to be down time.

It's only human to fantasise occasionally about returning the compliment: "So you're a doctor. Killed any patients lately or taken money for treating dead ones?" "So you're a barrister ? Still bending the truth when it suits, you greedy, fat git?" "So you're an architect? Still wrecking the countryside with your bland, suburban-style monstrosities?"

Of course journalism has its share of contemptible, self-serving, squalid, immoral excuses for humanity. No one knows this better than us. Memorable examples include the "crack" tabloid oaf sent from London to pose as a policeman to gain access to bereaved relatives in Omagh. But journalists have their uses, in war time and peace. Important uses, even. You may not love their politics, or their morals, methods or motives, but - as we know from the disproportionate number of media casualties in this vile, bloody war - at least journalists are in there at the centre, getting down and dirty, risking death or maiming, living in conditions to induce swooning fits in their carping armchair critics, striving to get at some version of the truth.

And that, emphatically, includes the "embedded" ones. We know through them, despite Centcom lies, that a whole family were wiped out because no warning shots were fired; that the checkpoints of the American liberators consist of agitated soldiers without a word of Arabic - not even "stop" - between them; that a woman lies dead because she was a "chick" who was "in the way". Are these not valuable insights into the reality of war ? How much dicing with death does a journalist have to do, to be called worthy?

The Guardian's Audrey Gillan, who hogged a cushy "embedded" number, was briefed as follows by the commanding officer : "When we are out in our vehicles in the field, we live together, eat together, sleep together, fart together and wash our bollocks together. Think you can handle it?" She's handling it, weighted down with heavy body armour at all times, sharing an armoured reconnaissance vehicle measuring 6 feet x 4 with five soldiers, with sand in every pore and in 100 degrees heat. And at some stage every day, she has to find the time, energy and space to write about it, reflectively and coherently, while fighting the urge to become a mouthpiece for likeable, frightened, young soldiers.

Every trade and profession has its shysters. It is our misfortune that our mistakes are more public than most. But for those who routinely do their best, at home or at war, a little common-or-garden respect might be in order.