Paul Thomas: Frank homage to Collins how he would have liked it

Pallbearers, including All Blacks, from left, Tana Umaga, Chris Masoe and Ma'a Nonu, carry Jerry Collin's casket out of Te Rauparaha Arena after the public funeral service in Porirua. Photo / NZME.

Opinion

When Michael Jackson died in 2009, the mainstream media was awash with eulogies to the King of Pop.

The satiric magazine Private Eye took a slightly different tack: "Mad Paedophile Dead" ran the headline above a story that began, "Yesterday a 50-year-old mentally ill paedophile died in America."

The coverage of Jackson's death largely adhered to the Latin principle "de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est" which we formulate as "don't speak ill of the dead".

In the Herald this week, expatriate author Alan Duff suggested our media had flouted that principle in its coverage of Jerry Collins' death: "Reliable sources tell me there was media negativity in recalling past incidents of Jerry arrested for carrying a knife in Japan, Jerry drunk and abusive at a fast food joint, Jerry and his couple of demons, compared to the 48 times he ran out in black and gave his all for his country."

Duff scathingly compared our coverage to that in his adopted country: "Not one mention of that tiny, unimportant, less heroic sliver of his life was mentioned here in France. They don't do that sort of crap journalism."

I referred to Collins' demons in a column for the New Zealand Listener so I guess that makes me a crap journalist.

(I also quoted some of what Mourad Boudjellal, the owner of French rugby club Toulon, said about Collins in his autobiography; it made the most negative comments here seem like moist-eyed hagiography, so perhaps France isn't entirely a crap-free zone.)

We preach that we shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but we don't practise it. Historians do little else. The law of defamation encourages speaking ill of the dead as the dead have no legal protection against libel and slander. Accordingly, publishers churn out slash-and-burn biographies of dead celebrities, often on bookshop shelves before the deceased's nearest and dearest are all cried out.

Newspaper obituaries don't necessarily abide by the principle, and why should they? If your grandmother had her life savings pilfered from a lawyer's trust account, would you want to read an obit of the larcenous lawyer focusing on his masterful conveyancing and service to Rotary Clubs while ignoring his thievery?

I was outraged to read an obit of movie star Dennis Hopper portraying him as a man of integrity when he bilked scriptwriter Terry Southern out of his share of the massive profits generated by Easy Rider. Despite writing two of the most influential movies of the mid-20th century - the other being Doctor Strangelove - and a handful of memorable novels, Southern died in poverty. Hopper died surrounded by an art collection worth tens of millions.

It's certainly true the French media have traditionally been inclined to curate rather than undermine the public images of their cultural and political elite, although coverage of President Francois Hollande's eventful private life suggests this may be changing.

But is this a good thing? Many in France and outside would argue turning a blind eye to powerful individuals' peccadilloes and transgressions is crap journalism.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was ensconced in the heart of the French power structure and widely seen as a future presidential contender until he made the fundamental error of taking his abusive act on the road. I wonder how those editors and journalists who chose not to report what was common knowledge in French political circles and high society feel, knowing they effectively enabled his gross activities.

Leaving aside the small matter that journalism's core duty is to tell the truth, there are two compelling reasons for thinking Duff is wrong and the warts-and-all portrayals of Collins are right.

First, Collins would almost certainly have wanted it that way. He took an intense, almost perverse pride in being his own man, even when that got him into trouble. His insistence on finding things out the hard way was reminiscent of Peter Cook's great comic creation, the upper-class wastrel Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling.

"I've learned from my mistakes," Sir Arthur would say, "and I'm sure I can repeat them."

Second, the outpouring of love and affection for Collins demonstrates again that the public prefers heroes with flaws to those so free of sin or shortcomings they present as superior beings.

Saints make us uncomfortable. Jerry Collins was no saint, but then he never pretended to be.