But now everyone will associate us with this other, unofficial, event. It’s devastating because we have been working hard to be seen as a professional organisation. I passed by on my way to another engagement, but stayed for only five minutes.The Mobo awards had its own official after-show party, which was attended by 1,000 people with barely a glass of wine being spilt. In fact, I was so unconnected to the event that the organisers only invited me on the night. We did not organise that party, and the people that did – the record company BMG – did not ask our permission to stage it. It was one of a series of private parties that had been organised that evening to coincide with our awards, which have become a major event in the British music calendar.

The reports all concerned alleged events at a party organised by a record company on a boat moored in London’s Docklands.This was an event that had nothing to do with us. The stories told of a gun incident, the discovery of a live bullet and an allegation of rape.Dani Behr, the television presenter, was quoted saying she feared “disaster and carnage” and would “never go to a Mobo awards do again.”Instead of talking about Ms Dynamite’s successes, the paper claimed that she had been “pinned against the entrance doors”. Instead, The Sun reported the next day “Stars Flee Riot at Award Party” and “Mayhem at the Mobos”. Five thousand people attended and saw some great artists, including Ms Dynamite, who picked up three awards.I thought it was a great success story of home-grown British talent. He asked if he could wait outside and said: “There’s not going to be any trouble, is there?” The reason for his nervousness was that I am the organiser of the Mobo awards, celebrating urban music, which, according to misleading reports that morning, had been the scene of rioting and mayhem the night before.
In fact, the awards ceremony – at the London Arena last Wednesday evening – had been one of the most memorable since we started the event six years ago. A motorcycle courier visited my company last week with a package, but he seemed reluctant to enter the office.

A longer version of this article is in the current issue ( ). And then they say: we’re only telling your stories.John Lloyd is a contributing editor to ‘Prospect’ magazine. Not only that; they direct other parts, and demand the right to do so They write large parts of the script. The coverage of the media by the media (beyond industry news and gossip) veers between a self-indulgent irony – “Aren’t we a bunch of drunken hacks?” – and a hyperbolic indignation directed at politicians or cowardly media executives.We need to make sure that the media take themselves seriously as social actors, because they have a lead part. But we rarely interrogate one of the greatest powers in the modern world: the media.