The last few days have shown us beyond any reasonable doubt that something (nobody’s really sure what) needs to be done to make our media set less presumptuous, far less invasive –  and much more accountable.

That’s a big assertion, so as usual here comes the evidence.

Three days ago, Christopher Jefferies ( since held on suspicion of murdering Jo Yeates) was ambushed by the forces of Murdoch . There followed a series of disgraceful articles by the Daily Mail, in which trial by media charged the bloke with liking poetry, showing controversial Nazi films to his students, and getting angry if pupils behaved like idiots. If that’s the way we’re going to try people from now on, I think I better turn myself in.

Now I hear on BBCNews that police have taken ‘brown paper evidence’ from Jefferies’ flat. This is Mediaspeak for forensics. The general feeling generated by this: ah-hah…he obviously did it – this is the clincher.

But earlier this afternoon, another impression was given. Police, it seemed, had moved their investigations to another flat – one unconnected to the prime suspect.

Er…..

Earlier today (Saturday) a member of the Yeates family came on television and told the media at large how the family was feeling. Not only is it none of our business how they’re feeling, it is appalling that ‘advisers’ tell these unfortunates the exact phrases they must use. “Closure, great future, unique person, sure her killer will be caught…”: on and on went the breast-baring, until I felt like Degas spying on his ballet dancers in their private moments. What right do the media have to assume that people must do this?

Even firemen are required to have fluent mediaspeak. As a balloon plunged to earth this morning, a fire officer said, “The balloon landed on a bowling green and was then subjected to a fire”. Subjected to a fire? We then saw the fire. Inside that fire, two people were burning to death. Presumably, they were being subjected to death.

And on this same action-packed day (‘white collar’ prisoners at Ford Open Prison having rioted the night before) another media-trained pillock came on to tell us what was really going on. He was of course a member of the Prison Officers Association, and his mission was to declare – not prove, mind you, just assert – that the riot had been caused by Government cuts in the prison service. Because (he added) with so few officers on duty at night, it was “easy for prisoners to gain access to alcohol”.

If you can follow that argument, please email me. I too would like to be a Time Lord.

So to sum up, the media found a man guilty of a crime as yet unsolved, the aggrieved family insisted that this crime would be solved, a fireman suggested that subjection to fire was unpleasant, and a Union convenor said only the TUC could stop a mass break-out from Britain’s prisons.

It was all staged, sub judice, unevidenced, misleading bollocks from start to finish.

My former profession – dubbed by these media manipulators The Hidden Persuaders – is subjected to endless rules, standards, investigations and tests before before anyone can say so much as ‘available at Tescos’. While I am passionately of the view that libel law favours and protects the rich, I am also of the opinion that the media are controlled by that same rich…with added hypocrisy.

So here is my humble suggestion: why not a law that protects the poor and the innocent from the press? (One that doesn’t turn into Secret Family Courts to be manipulated by the oddly powerful).

And why not a cooling-off period for victims such that, if good sense changes their minds after they’ve been shouted at through the letter-box, they can decide NOT to release that footage of them looking like catatonic dweebs?

Just a thought.