This blog post examines the dangers and cautionary message that media manipulation and tabloid journalism pose to our society, using the character of Magnussen, Sherlock Holmes’s adversary, as a lens.
If you were to name the protagonist of the world’s most famous detective novel, there’s one character who absolutely cannot be left out. That character, whose name everyone has heard at least once, is none other than Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. He is hailed as the greatest detective among detectives in the world of detective fiction and has been recreated and reinterpreted through various works. Particularly, the British drama Sherlock, which aired from 2010, gained immense popularity among Sherlock Holmes fans and became a global hit. Riding this popularity, it successfully aired up to Season 3 in 2014. Season 4 aired in January 2017, but no new seasons have followed since. However, lead actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have expressed positive attitudes towards a fifth season, raising fans’ expectations. Cumberbatch stated, “I would be willing to return if the circumstances were right,” and Freeman also said, “I would return if there was a good script.”
I too have been captivated by this drama and watched all four seasons from the beginning this year. Each episode offers diverse cases and solutions, making it impossible to get bored. Among them, the final episode of Season 3, “His Last Vow,” was particularly memorable for its powerful twist and Sherlock Holmes’s suffering. It also tackles the issue of media manipulation, a topic that deserves serious attention in the real world, making it even more memorable.
The episode begins with Charles Augustus Magnussen, a newspaper publisher, being interrogated. He is suspected of regularly meeting with the British Prime Minister and exerting pressure to push policies favorable to him. Magnussen denies this, but from this very first scene, it is implied that he is the ultimate mastermind behind the episode. Magnussen then corners one of the interrogators by retrieving evidence of her husband’s affair from his personal repository of knowledge, dubbed the “Apple Door.” When she protests that this is blackmail, he delivers the chilling retort: “Of course it’s not blackmail. This is… ownership.”
This line reveals his true nature. He was a man who wielded information as a weapon to manipulate people at will, accumulating it like an asset. Ultimately, Sherlock Holmes, the only person in Britain capable of facing Magnussen, is commissioned to handle the case, and the story plunges into a full-fledged battle of wits. I watched the rest of the story unfold, eager to see how Sherlock Holmes would triumph in his confrontation with the powerful newspaper magnate.
Sherlock Holmes devises a plan to seize the “Apple Door.” Even if he is a newspaper magnate, if he has touched state secrets, there is a possibility that the “Apple Door” could be searched by British intelligence. With this in mind, Sherlock Holmes proposes to Magnussen that they exchange the laptop containing state secrets for the “Apple Door” data. Magnussen accepted the laptop without hesitation, and I was now waiting for the scene where the information contained in “Apple Door” would be revealed.
However, in the subsequent scene, Magnussen had seen through Sherlock Holmes’ plan from the start and calmly stated that Sherlock Holmes had made a huge mistake. And the true nature of “Apple Door” is revealed: astonishingly, it was a virtual warehouse made up of Magnussen’s own memories! He didn’t actually possess the evidence; he simply remembered everything. Physical evidence wasn’t necessary; the mere fact that it could be splashed across newspapers to deceive people was sufficient. In this scene, both Sherlock Holmes in the story and I were deeply shocked. The first shock was that Sherlock Holmes had lost the battle of wits. The second shock came because it reminded me of the low-credibility, sensationalist articles—so-called tabloid pieces—often seen in real-world media. In that moment, I felt a direct connection to how real-world media deceives and manipulates the public.
In the story, Magnussen uses actual facts as a tool for blackmail, but there is a fundamental difference from tabloid articles. Magnussen blackmails based on real facts, even if he lacks physical evidence. Tabloid articles, on the other hand, incite people with plausible-sounding stories regardless of their truthfulness. However, both are identical in their ability to deceive people without basis and manipulate public opinion. Just as Magnussen uses memory as a means to manipulate the masses, tabloid articles in reality deceive the public with uncertain grounds. In fact, countless celebrities and politicians find it difficult to restore their image after it has been damaged by the media. Even if a correction is published, it is rare for the already tarnished image to be restored. Ultimately, people come to fear the media just as they fear Magnussen, revealing a stark disconnect from the media’s fundamental role of providing fair reporting.
Through this episode, I felt it pointed out the current problem of media manipulation through Magnussen’s words and actions, going beyond simply reimagining a Sherlock Holmes story. Of course, not all media manipulate public opinion through such tactics. Most articles are written fairly based on facts, and even if they criticize someone, it is right to inform the world if it is based on facts and can be proven. However, coercing people unfairly to gain advantage or manipulating their image with false information is clearly wrong. Current legal measures to curb malicious media manipulation are insufficient, allowing countless tabloids to thrive. Establishing legal penalties for baseless, malicious articles or requiring publications to provide at least minimal evidence could be one solution.
