IF YOU believe the many who complained, the most shocking advert on British television last year involved a grisly visual pun and the word "hooked". Hundreds were appalled, and voiced their disgust to the Advertising Standards Authority. Scenes of actors being hauled around like gasping fish were too graphic, too horribly difficult to watch. "Gratuitous" was used and, as ever, misused.

Few of us enjoy being upset, or having others upset. It's not what we expect in a civilised society. Yet what was the purpose of this piece of base media manipulation? The idea, blatantly, was to deter people from the stupid habit of smoking. Imagine the gall.

So what truly offends a large and vociferous number of us? Actors pretending to be caught on big pretend hooks, or the knowledge of what happens to those who succumb to cancer of the lungs? Is it shocking to witness smart-alec telly folk at their worst, or would a couple of true stories about the activities of the tobacco industry - ruthless, dishonest and murderous - bother us even slightly?

And that was the only thing some people could find to worry about? Nothing else on TV caught their eyes last year, even momentarily?

When I began in this business I worked for a respectable daily that took an old-fashioned pride in its standards. There were strict rules designed to prevent causing offence. One was simple: no bodies. It was thought unnecessary ever to show corpses. Most papers still stick by this rule, most of the time. Does it add to anyone's understanding of a car crash to run a photograph of the body of someone's dead husband or daughter?

What is the judgement, however, when it becomes known that supposedly Christian militias have massacred the inhabitants of two Palestinian refugee camps, and when it is alleged that Israel's Ariel Sharon has played a role in the atrocities? Still "no bodies"? Or is the polite avoidance of the bloody facts akin to fabrication? Let's just say that there was a debate, and this junior hack was over-ruled.

When the media get it in the neck, the punishment is often deserved. Many things go on that I wouldn't attempt to defend. But two factors deserve some consideration. One could be put like this: sometimes the audience can be blamed for the performance.

There would be no trash TV if no-one watched. There would be no unspeakable (if that's your opinion) tabloid behaviour if no-one bought the papers. The asinine radio shock-jock would argue that he says cruel or hurtful things the better to cultivate a relationship with his loyal fans. He would not be entirely wrong.

I'm not the first journalist - and I won't be the last - to notice that the people who complain loudest about "the media" seem to spend a lot of time viewing, listening and reading. Funny, that. Funnier still is the fact that you rarely come across people who boast about buying the Daily Star, yet the title still sells sufficiently well to count as a profitable little operation.

The second factor too often overlooked has to do with the relationship between producers and consumers. Think of the most common yet rarely examined media word: story. This means that narratives are selected and shaped, because an audience has certain expectations. There are assumptions as to what makes a "good" story. And a good story is often a horrible story. The consumers, the audience, seem to be keen on those.

HERE comes the twist. Very often, the actual importance of the facts at issue have no bearing on a story's success. In certain moods I would be prepared to write about the catastrophe that is Afghanistan on a daily basis. The deaths, maimings and emotional injuries touching families the length of Britain would alone supply enough words. No-one has told me I cannot write about such things. But when does the greatest part of the British public really sit up and take notice? Only when there is a prince in the staged snaps.

The media are not all-powerful, entirely out of control, or instruments of a press baron's whims. Not always, at any rate. They have other masters. Those enjoy, above all, a good story. They demand their entertainment.

Kate and Gerry McCann thought they could ride this mangy tiger. They thought they knew how to keep the world's attention focused on one little girl's disappearance when the world forgets so many lost children. The couple pinned their hopes on a "media campaign". They paid, in my opinion, a high price for that decision.

Last week, marking the year that has elapsed since their daughter's disappearance, the McCanns all but admitted that their hopes of inspiring a global search have almost gone. They have endured 12 months in which pity and astonishing spite have alternated. They have won a legal case against the Express Newspapers group for its efforts to turn a succession of the public's "theories" into credible tales.

In this shaped narrative, this folk story, the McCanns have been assigned roles, cast into parts, and given a moral meaning that has precious little to do with any known reality. That sells papers. That gets papers bought. The very fact that I have even mentioned the couple by name will ensure me more attention - and I speak from experience - than anything I will ever say about Afghanistan.

I could say that the fantastic media reaction to the unspeakable crimes of Josef Fritzl has itself been deeply disturbing. Can I explain anything this individual is said to have done? No. Can I wonder aloud why the horror causes us to stir, collectively, when we know (or should know) that men such as this, and acts such as his, are in fact mercifully rare in our world? Yes.

Still, none of that would matter. I've mentioned Fritzl. It's enough. It's the big story. The satellite trucks have invaded a small Austrian town. The pieces-to-camera are going out continuously. No paper will allow a byline that fails to include the name Amstetten. And then, of course, there will follow the items in the media on the behaviour of the media. Just like this one, in fact.

It is possible, however, that not all such pieces will tend towards the same conclusions. We'll see. Perhaps someone else will point out the similarities between the production and consumption of media tales and another branch of the entertainment industry. This too is odd. This too has a vast audience that somehow also fails to exist. Ask anyone if they "use" pornography, or if they approve of the abuse on which that trade depends. You will invariably receive a firm, offended denial.

Decent people would simultaneously deny wanting or needing to know exactly what Fritzl did, to whom, and when. Most will be strangely well-informed, however. Most will somehow have caught a glimpse of the gee-whizz computerised graphics on the TV news showing the precise details of the monster's elaborately-constructed lair.

Few will confess to a real, hypnotised interest. Those who do will not be able to tell you why stories of depravity ensnare their attention. None will bother to pretend that knowing all about Fritzl aids his victims or explains his actions.

It's a story. Both a "good" story and, simultaneously, a truly awful story. It does not differ much, not in any important way, from porn. It is, in the actual meaning, sensational.

But few of them look away, or stop up their ears. Just possibly, that may be one of the reasons - though certainly not the only reason - why a creature such as Josef Fritzl can come into existence.