The quality of reporting by the UK’s press has been called into question following a series of allegations against the Bishop of Staines – which had dominated the front pages for several days – being proven to be without foundation. Some of the newspapers involved, however, continue to stand behind what they describe as their ‘impeccable confidential sources’ which had originally sparked their stories. “Look, just because he’s come up with an alibi for three of those occasions when our source saw him taking a dump on his neighbour’s front lawn, doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s in the clear,” says Norman Welkinghurst, managing editor of the Daily Excess. “I know that he claims that he was seen by a congregation of several hundred people while giving a sermon those times, but what about that fourth sighting, eh? Besides, since when has any church had congregations running into the hundreds? Clearly dodgy alibis, in my book! As far as I’m concerned, our source is beyond reproach.” The Bishop himself maintains his innocence and is currently threatening libel action against the Excess, The Shite and The Post on Sunday, which had all featured the story prominently. “It’s bloody outrageous! These claims that I was seen squatting on my neighbour’s front garden, pants and trousers around my ankles, laying a cable, then pulling myself along on my hands to smear it all over the lawn, have been hugely damaging to my reputation,” he told the Practical Christianity Weekly magazine. “For goodness sake, why would I do a thing like that? All this talk of a long running dispute between us is utter nonsense!”

The case has highlighted the UK press’ increasing reliance upon access to sources rather than actual investigative journalism in order to generate stories. “The problem is that, as they remain confidential, we can have no idea of just how reliable these sources are,” explains Professor Howard Frenestall, Chair of Media Studies at the Acrington Institute of Advanced Animal Husbandry. “Obviously, the journalists themselves want us to believe that they are actually high-ranking officials in institutions like government departments, the church, education and commerce. But our own investigation into this business about the Bishop of Staines has suggested that they are nothing of the sort. Indeed, in this case it seems that the source of the story was a local ‘nosy neighbour’, notorious in the district for spying on local residents.” According to Frenestall’s investigation, the source who informed on the Bishop was actually a neighbour from four doors down and across the street. “Apparently, he’s retired and spends all day peering at other houses through a pair of high-powered binoculars, keeping detailed records of everything he sees,” claims the academic. “He’s forever calling the police to report alleged crimes that he’s seen – it has got to the stage where they no longer respond without independent third-party confirmation, because all have proven to be false alarms. So, this time he called the press, instead.”

Frenestall has also revealed that this isn’t the first time that the snooper has made an incorrect identification, with serious consequences. “Another local resident told us that last year this nosy neighbour had told the guy from Number Nine that he had regularly seen former Tory government minister Jacob Rees-Mogg going in the back door of his house when he was out, bending the bloke’s wife across the dining table and taking her roughly from behind, (they supposedly never drew the curtains, enjoying the thrill of potentially being seen),” he says. “Consequently, the supposedly cuckolded husband travelled to Somerset, stormed into one of Rees-Mogg’s constituency surgeries and tried to punch him out, resulting in a major security alert as police suspected it was a terrorist attack!” It was subsequently established that the person entering Number Nine by the back door was actually a plumber trying to fix a ballcock. “The nosy neighbour’s identification of him as Rees-Mogg was based on the fact that the plumber was tall and thin and wore glasses,” notes Frenestall. “Presumably, if he’d been a fat slob, then the nosy neighbour would have identified him as Boris Johnson. Which, frankly, would have been more plausible as it is hard to image a limp, lanky streak of piss like Rees-Mogg bending anything, let alone someone else’s wife across a table.”

Welkinghurst and other editors have tried to dismiss Frenestall’s claims out of hand. “Oh come on, the idea that we would rely upon nosy neighbours as sources for major stories is quite ridiculous,” he declared. “We carefully vet our sources and the information they give us for accuracy, authenticity and reliability – we never make outrageous allegations against public figures without checking these things out.” Frenestall, nonetheless, argues that the idea of new outlets using the likes of snoopers, eavesdroppers, peeping Toms and local gossips as sources is far from ridiculous. “They are simply following the lead given by the UK’s police and security forces,” he opines. “For years now they have seemingly wanted to rely upon the public for intelligence gathering, forever urging us to ring confidential phone lines to report on any suspicious ‘foreign-looking’ types we see buying the New Statesman or The Guardian, or local weirdos who are probably child molesters.” He also points out that, in certain areas, the media has been reliant upon such dubious sources for years. “Ever since they were told that they couldn’t tap football agents’ phones, their sports reporters have instead had to rely upon so-called ‘In-The-Know’ sources who supposedly have the inside track on player transfers.” he says. “Of course they are invariably wrong and usually turn out to be the assistant groundsman’s sister’s boyfriend’s second cousin’s hairdresser, who once cut the boot boy’s hair.”

The academic suspects that even political reporting in the supposed ‘quality press’ are increasingly based upon rumours gleaned from the neighbours of prominent MPs and ministers, listening at connecting walls with upturned glasses, or watching them on their security and doorbell cameras and trying to lip read their exchanges with aides. “Who needs facts in journalism when you can have much more interesting rumours, instead?” he muses. “Indeed, it seems that nowadays nobody is interested in objective facts – the likes of Facebook and Twitter don’t even bother fact-checking anything on their feeds any more – truth is relative: if you don’t like one set of facts, just ignore them, someone is sure to make up some you prefer pretty quickly.” In the case of the Bishop of Staines story, the police have now become involved, testing samples of the shit found on his neighbour’s lawn to conclusively determine whether it was left by him or the dog from Number Twenty Two. “I’m confident that I will be vindicated,” says the Bishop. “That dog’s a bloody menace and, I’m told, can sometimes look a bit like me when seen from a certain angle.”