{"id":259539,"date":"2026-01-23T09:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T09:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/259539\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T09:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T09:54:08","slug":"the-beckhams-gifted-us-one-of-the-best-weeks-on-the-internet-after-the-coldplay-couple-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/259539\/","title":{"rendered":"The Beckhams gifted us one of the best weeks on the internet after the Coldplay couple \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a journalist, there are a couple of questions I get asked often. The first is, \u201cDid you do your own make-up today?\u201d (In a kind, concerned way so I know it\u2019s more a welfare check than a compliment.) The second is, \u201cWhy is the news so negative, can\u2019t you just give us good news?\u201d<\/p>\n

Depending on my mood (which like the Irish weather<\/a> is mostly bad with pockets of sunshine), I have a few answers. One is that it\u2019s our job to find out information that people would like to sweep under the carpet and that news is rarely good. No political adviser is sitting on a report that says the government is doing a great job, hoping the public never finds out that hospitals are being built on time and too many houses have been constructed. The other is that actually, conflict is at the heart of most news.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Brooklyn\u2019s Instagram post has torpedoed Brand Beckham\u2019s meticulously curated imageOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Since wars have existed, people have reported on them. But conflict isn\u2019t relegated to the international news segment. It isn\u2019t just about what full-time madman in charge of the nuclear codes is up to now. Sports reporting is about conflict both on and off the field. Bitter rivalries, big match upsets and criticisms of coaches. A large part of political reporting is nameless sniping and leaking. Like a senior infant telling you about their day when you pick them up, it can be a running report card of who\u2019s fallen out with who, who\u2019s playing nice this week and why, just (hopefully) with fewer instances of head lice. <\/p>\n

We report on conflict because humans are drawn to it, like nosy moths to a gossipy lamp. The audiences have always decided what makes the news. You used to do it by buying the paper with the headlines you wanted to read more about. Now you do it with your clicks. The feedback is instant. Editors know what you want to read about before you\u2019ve hit the bottom of the page. While outlets will always try to cover objectively worthy news, it would be a lie to say reader interest doesn\u2019t influence what stories get a run and how much resources get devoted to them. <\/p>\n

So before anyone gets their thumbs ready to comment \u201cWhy is this news? Who cares\u201d under reports of the Beckham family drama this week, the answer is: \u201cLoads of people, that\u2019s why\u201d. That\u2019s why there\u2019s been international coverage for days. Front page articles. TV packages. Instagram reels and radio bulletins reporting Brooklyn Beckham\u2019s statement<\/a> on the rift with his family which involves wedding dress spats, social media blocking and one alleged \u201cvery inappropriate\u201d mother of the groom dance. Then came the secondary content \u2013 the podcasts analysing the Beckham family\u2019s PR strategy. Articles on the psychology of family alienation. And the tweets, oh my, the tweets (I will never call it X). After the Coldplay couple<\/a> scandal, it was one of the best weeks on the internet. And why?<\/p>\n

Because we couldn\u2019t get enough of someone else\u2019s messy relationship drama. Unlike Harry<\/a> and Meghan\u2019s \u201cwere you silent or silenced\u201d interview, we didn\u2019t even need a sit down with Oprah to pry out the details. He chose Instagram to tell his 16 million followers that his mum had called him evil for sitting his nana at his wedding top table. At that moment we learned the son of multimillionaires was just like our auntie ranting about her ex not paying child maintenance on Facebook after a few white wines. And the world ate it up. <\/p>\n

Just as we did Twink\u2019s \u201czip up your mickey\u201d and Aoife McGregor\u2019s \u201cthe neeeeeeccckkk\u201d voicemails. Some people more than others get a deep and grubby thrill from watching people fall out with each other. I\u2019ve seen the way people\u2019s eyes light up as they earwig into the couple having a difficult conversation next to them. Kicking their dinner companion under the table to stop blathering on so they can listen in. It was such a common occurrence when I was living in Dublin that my friend and I had pretend conversations when we noticed other diners were doing it to us. \u201cAnd so I said to him I wouldn\u2019t marry him after the incident with baked beans unless he gave me his grandmother\u2019s ring \u2013 all he just has to do is dig her up.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"BrooklynBrooklyn Peltz Beckham and Nicola Peltz Beckham at the Netflix Beckham UK premiere. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Why are we so interested in the family foibles of a man who couldn\u2019t even take a photo of an elephant? It could just be rich people Schadenfreude. Or it could be that we enjoy raking over other people\u2019s conflicts so we can actively avoid our own. When we\u2019re playing amateur detective over whether or not Posh Spice really refused to design a wedding dress, we don\u2019t have to confront all the things left unsaid in our own families. Or the secret resentment that\u2019s turning into a stomach ulcer. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0There\u2019s a whiff of ancient Rome about the Beckham family feudOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a journalist, there are a couple of questions I get asked often. The first is, \u201cDid you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[24401,21312,93,631,61,60,709,3341,42415],"class_list":["post-259539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-brianna-parkins","tag-david-beckham","tag-entertainment","tag-for-you","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-victoria-beckham","tag-your-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}