No one emerges from the sad death of poppy-seller Olive Cooke with any credit, writes Ian Allsop.

Essentially, the whole tragic episode surrounding Olive Cooke’s death has been used as a springboard for the media to trot out the same old hoary arguments, as if charities are intrinsically evil. Why do the press seem intent on undermining organisations that exist to do good?

You don’t show respect to a 92-year-old by using her death as the lighter fluid for your own bonfire of agendas. But that hasn’t stopped the reportage laying the blame squarely at the door of “begging” charities. Which beggars belief.

Crass hypocrisy

Leaving aside the crass hypocrisy of the tabloids taking the moral high ground on people being pestered, there is something deeply uncomfortable about society judging charities for the methods they use to raise funds without questioning why society has such a need for charities in the first place. If you want to get ‘proper outraged’ that’s your starting point.

Just as it has long been a legal requirement for the press to add ‘gate’ to any scandal (I for one am praying that England cricketer Sam Billings is caught doing something fishy soon), it is now a statutory obligation to call for legislation in the name of the victim. Thus the Daily Mail launched a campaign for Olive’s Law. While I am no legal expert, this seems to amount to bombarding pensioners with requests for donations to be made a hanging offence. I think.

Things reached a low when The Sun did the decent thing by Olive’s memory and stitched up NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless.

Rehashing the fat-cat charity chief executive stories of yore, they used a picture of Peter, glass of ‘fizz’ in hand, to illustrate the fact that “these lifestyles are funded by the generosity of charity supporters such as 92-year-old Olive, who killed herself last month after being pestered for donations”.

Amazing. You can almost picture the editorial meeting behind that one. “Listen, we can’t hack phones anymore but let’s trawl the Facebook accounts of some big charity bosses until we find a picture we can publish out of context.”

It has become the norm for any stories about how much charity chief executives trouser to use the PM’s salary as a benchmark: “Disgraceful, they get paid more than David Cameron.”

Luckily Cameron earned a considerable cut of his derisory pay with a carefully scripted – I mean considered – statement about the fundraising watchdog, the FRSB. Because if there is one part of public life that has proved the efficiency of self-regulation it is Parliament. No expense spared.

And then there was Shawcross. Dear old William Shawcross. Now we have talked about this before, haven’t we William? Nothing creates a loss of confidence in something more than someone publicly stating there is a crisis of confidence – especially if he happens to be chair of the Charity Commission.

Yes, there are things charities need to address. Perhaps some fundraising has been, let’s say, over-enthusiastic. And the sector needs to better present the arguments in favour of controversial methods of procuring cash, and then justify spending what still amounts to a proportionately small percentage of it employing highly capable managers to make best use of what is left. But then we have been saying this for ages and the issues keep coming up.

Fighting back

People say that the sector needs to fight back. All well and good, but how? Through the same media that is intent on slagging it off? Good luck with that one.

One person who has fought back is Sir Stephen Bubb, no stranger to promoting a champagne lifestyle. He had a right pop at Shawcross, which isn’t the first time they have disagreed.

While entertaining in a strange kind of way, the fact that the chair of the sector’s regulator and head of one of its major umbrella bodies are so visibly squaring up cannot help solve the problems they are both trying to address.

Charities do some incredible things, as showcased by last month’s Charity Awards (at which for some reason everyone was either not drinking champagne, or hiding their glasses whenever a camera was brandished). These are the things that should be on the front pages of newspapers.

Ian Allsop is a freelance editor and journalist, and regular contributor to Charity Finance.