Murdoch hacking scandal latest

[Petrushka]

This surely is the death knell of the News of the World and not before time.

I stopped buying newspapers several years ago as I was appalled by the poor standard of reporting.

[hackneyvi]

No, I thought she did.

In our petty, negligible, inRuperturbible way, let's keep the beam focussed on the fiendish Murdoch. Wade is a bat who escaped from a common life into the Hell of Murdoch's wallet. She makes money for Rupert; her sole purpose. Let's look and learn; will Rupert cut Rebekah's throat? How will he do it, if so? As his instrument, how can Rupert murder Rebekah?

Let us look and learn.

[amateur51]

Steve Bell comes to your aid, hackneyvi!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2011/jul/06/rupert-murdoch-rebekah-brooks-phone-hacking

The bloke's a genius!

[Stillhomewardbound]

In government there used to be applied the doctrine of collective responsibility. That was when an individual, or individuals had failed in their duty and let their department down, then everyone was deemed to be in the wrong and at that stage the person at the top of the heap took the fall. Alas, we'd really have to go back to Paddy Carrington's resignation at the beginnings of the Falklands crisis to recall such a moment.

I cite this singular example to make a bigger point, which is, let us swiftly discard the testimony of those who say they have been wholly unaware of any hacking attempts made on behalf of their newspapers.

Ignorance is never a defence in the eyes of the law and it is untenable for editors, senior, junior, menial or otherwise to mount some kind of 'not in my name' defence.

Remember the Alan J Pakula film based on the Watergate scandal. As depicted, the overriding concern of the editors on the Washington Journal was to know that their sources were unimpeachable and there had been no jiggery pokery in the obtaining of their material.

Back to collective responsibility, be it the edtor of Today, the Times or the Sun, or whichever title, for whatever they publish, they must carry the can.

[Lateralthinking1]

Did senior officials or anyone in the Cabinet know? No, surely not. Hello Easingwold. It's a summery morning.

[Frances_iom]

Coulson appaers to have bribed Police for infornmation - good to know that Cameron has such honest friends and ex-employees and that he + friends wish to replace the BBC with the Murdoch empire for the better serving of the British public.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I haven't read a newspaper for 10 years or more, as for Murdoch, I think you all know my views on this revolting specimen of humanity, enough said I think.

[Mr Pee]

I haven't read a newspaper for 10 years or more, as for Murdoch, I think you all know my views on this revolting specimen of humanity, enough said I think.

Well, no, I don't know your views. Do tell.

[MrGongGong]

I do think the latest revelations are significantly different
Stupid politicians, footballers and "celebrities" who are surprised to find that they haven't changed the default voicemail pin on their mobile phone and therefore find that journalists are able to listen to their messages are NOT the same as innocent members of the general public who happen to be the victims of crime. Though what it will mean is that people will become more aware that anything you say, record or write using phone or internet is in the public domain.............

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This surely is the death knell of the News of the World and not before time.

I very much hope so. This particular publication behaves more like a terrorist organisation that a responsible newspaper.

[Nick Armstrong]

I very much hope so. This particular publication behaves more like a terrorist organisation that a responsible newspaper.

Your terrorist reference makes me think you might sympathise with this expressive paragraph from Lord Pannick QC's submissions to the European Court of Human Rights in Max Mosely's appeal recently. Whatever one thinks of the case or of his argument about tabloids pre-warning potential victims of impending coverage, I am with Pannick on this:

“...why such journalistic intrusion into the sex lives of the victims should be so popular in the UK when it is a phenomenon unknown in its intensity elsewhere in Europe would, I think, require a psychological study… It is a curious paradox that in a society which has become increasingly tolerant, and rightly so, on matters of sexual freedom, a society that has increasingly valued the right to personal privacy on sexual matters, that the News of the World should, like some journalistic Taliban, be able to insist on forcing its way into the bedrooms of consenting adults...”

[aeolium]

Perhaps Armando Iannucci and G F Newman could collaborate on a docudrama of the whole saga - Iannucci could do the journos/policiticos stuff and Newman the police wheeler-dealing. The focus has understandably been on the NotW and News International but the murky role of the Met has been less remarked on.

[Lateralthinking1]

What concerns me slightly with this business is the manner in which so many issues are conflated. While this opportunity to condemn Murdoch is very tempting, particularly on the grounds of democracy, there is too much of importance for it not to be considered bit by bit. In so many ways, it symbolises the British, and much of the western, condition. Let us begin with Lord Pannick QC. I do not disagree with his comments in reference to Mosley. However, you have there a situation in which a public figure has had attention from the media for what is often described as a private life. Few would question his right, or indeed wish, to make them accountable for their reporting. Some though might argue that if he valued his privacy beyond all else, the most convincing indicator would have been simply to have let matters rest. And, arguably, an unknown person would not have found himself in that situation. This is not to say that public figures should be less able to enjoy privacy but it does highlight the way in which society struggles with the lines of privacy in respect of public figures. Maybe that is inevitable and we should accept it as such. In fact, maybe those in the public eye should start to get real and accept it for they seem to have most of these problems.

Next, the role of sex in these occasional crises frequently obscures the deeper symbolism. People concentrate on any salacious aspects even when constitutional points are being considered. The Establishment too finds it difficult, not least because it reveals paradoxes in attitudes and even legislation. That Lord Pannick should say in the same sentence "a society which has become increasingly tolerant, and rightly so, on matters of sexual freedom, a society that has increasingly valued the right to personal privacy on sexual matters" reveals the confused thinking at the heart of post-1960s liberalism. Sexual freedom is not at odds with personal privacy but it has now been largely defined as open expression. I am not saying that is wrong. However, there is an inherent, if partial, contradiction there. Does a page 3 girl have the same justification as a barrister to say that her privacy has been breached by photographers on a beach? Are the celebrities who trade on their sex lives compromising their right to privacy more than a newsreader? I feel that the answers to these questions are "yes" and "no". Probably you do too and there in many respects is the essence of the problem. No one has ever really thought these things through to an effective conclusion.

Now you look at high profile politicians. They don't generally convince the public that they are the ultimate examples of how things should be done in all decency but this is nevertheless the idealistic expectation. It is usually how they portray themselves and they would do seeing that they decide on behalf of the rest of us what the law should permit or not on almost every matter. In some cases, the media are bound to take an interest in relationships. The case of Lord Prescott is one that springs to mind. Not exactly hidden from officials, it would arguably have been quite difficult to define his rights to privacy. As for the morality of it, once it became known, people made up their own minds. Still, in more recent years, it is the financial aspects of the lives of politicians and their spouses which have been under greater scrutiny. One might well argue that personal finances are a private matter. But clearly if people are in the public eye, and more so if they have some input into discussions on the national economy, then that places them in a slightly different position to the average Joe. Where there are cases before courts, as was true in respect of Jowell's husband, and MPs' expenses, then the usual privacy is already removed so that is different again. Ah, you may say, but the financial cases have nothing to do with the freedoms of sexual expression. I disagree. Surely, there is a direct parallel between people wanting their private lives to be wholly in the bedroom while also parading them to the world and wanting to keep their domestic and financial arrangements concealed while being in everyone's living rooms on televisions most days and nights.

Having said as much, I should have thought that phone hacking was very wrong, particularly if it were ever to be proven that it had been authorised by someone close to the Prime Minister, but I can't help but feel that the phone tapping of, say, the relatives of victims of terrorism is a greater breach of privacy than anything I have mentioned hitherto. They generally do not sell themselves for a living and are not in the public eye through choice. They don't decide what others should or shouldn't do. There is no suspicion that they have done anything wrong legally or from any moral viewpoint. It does them no justice to lump them in with the high profile names who are already "settling" with the media and to do so has much to say about the problems people have generally in comprehending, and complying with, the dividing lines. You cannot logically separate out the politicians, the media and the readership when it comes to the practices the media use. Everyone is complicit so much wailing about the impacts few had thought about is at best somewhat hollow. You have people arguing on the Jeremy Kyle show about things that would once have been resolved quietly and others lapping it up. That is just the tip of the iceberg and the inference is that everyone should be more in that mould until they suddenly don't want to be. Then they realise that they have been conned. So yes, I really do believe that for as long as private lives are seen as a major selling point, which will probably be for ever more, the same old bubbles of critique on all aspects of privacy will frequently emerge. It is in the basic contradictions perpetuated around economy and lifestyle.

And the lack of any scrutiny does enable the boundaries to be crossed in a very illiberal way in a very wide range of other areas. Phone interception yes - and that from the Government as well as the media. Council officials sitting outside homes to observe recycling efforts, the overly oppressive smoking ban, wheel clamping, cold calling, mistreatment of children, the elderly and the mentally disabled in private and local authority homes, the ability of utility providers to deduct payments from bank accounts when their own accounts are awry with the threat that cancellation of the direct debit will lead to a huge fine, the recent practice of sending bailiffs out on a whim. There are so many areas now where it seems that we are living in something akin to the very worst aspects of Soviet Russia with all of the bully boy, and girl, practices that entails. Much of that is about a growing disregard for others' personal boundaries and regrettably it is systemic. Liberal freedoms when applied to private practices are the antithesis of heavy authoritarianism but when they become almost the equivalent to unrestrained public expression then they can be the direct route to it. Once I wouldn't have believed it but the evidence is now overwhelming. Actually, I think that it could also be viewed as being linked to the increasing willingness of the west to declare war at the drop of a hat. It is again about those fuzzy boundaries.

To conclude, journalists have a job to do. They need to rein themselves in a bit, particularly given the latest revelations. But let's face it, many in the public eye are so a part of it that they virtually invite the media into their bedrooms and to meetings with their bank managers. They can't have it all ways. They also can't be allowed to detract from the more important point that private individuals who do nothing wrong really should be entitled to full privacy. Sadly, I expect the unequivocal victims to have a far tougher time of it winning their cases than those with public profiles. Still, this could just be a turning point in what the general public is willing to buy into generally, Cameron could have a dodgy ride, and Murdoch's influence may have a few brakes applied. To my mind, all of these things would be good news even if major significant change seems unlikely. We live in a competitive money-making system that by definition is hugely territorial. It operates on or towards the lowest common denominator and in doing so creates winners and losers. The ultimate irony is that it can only have one direction which is essentially to drag itself down.

[MrGongGong]

good stuff lateral and you are right that there is a heap of conflation going on
however

"I should have thought that phone tapping was very wrong" indeed BUT (and i DO make a huge distinction between MPs, "Celebs" and the innocent members of the general public)

technically speaking their phones weren't "tapped"

the phone has a default number to access the messages so all you need is the phone number and the generic access number ............. if people who are high profile can't get their heads round the simple task of changing the access number then they really need to be a bit more careful !

[Stillhomewardbound]

If a reporter enters a house by the unlocked kitchen door and rifles his way through the mailrack that sits on the sideboard it is trespass surely. Likewise, acccessing someone's phone mailbox, I would have said.

As for accessing the mailboxes of the victims of horrendous atrocities, as has been suggested, strikes me as utterly repugnant.

I have never bought a tabloid in my life, but Britons do by the millions, and they really ought to consider the kind of journalistic practices that carried out on their behalf. Perhaps they ouyght to consider a boycott such as was carried out by the people of Liverpool against the Sun following the awful events of Hillsborough.

Even today I believe the Sun sells in very small numbers on Merseyside.

And as for the Met, how on earth do they explain the ease with which they apparently failed to get to the bottom of this the first time around.

This is a timebomb that has exploded and the difference will be that this goes so far beyond celebrity trivia and the likes. This is a news operation that has no respect for the rules and morals of the country in which it operates. It was bad enough that they pay bugger all tax on their UK earnings.