Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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News of the World dead in the water — not the water of tears

As a newspaper ourselves, the last thing we want to see is yet another newspaper bite the dust, especially in this digital age.

But we have to admit that when Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World put out its last edition last weekend — the direct result of a still-burgeoning, destination-unknown, ethics scandal — we found it hard to shed a tear.

The News of the World, after all, was a tabloid in the worst sense of the word. It did its level best to undermine the very foundation upon which responsible media have always striven to stand: credibility. Without the public’s trust in our accuracy, fairness and ethics, all of us might as well be tabloids.

The News’ cardinal sin, of course, was an ethical one, in what appears to be a years-long practice of hacking into telephones of private citizens, celebrities and public officials, apparently in hopes of scoring the sort of sensational or sleazy tidbits that long fed the baser instincts of its readers.


The fact that many of the newspaper’s targets were relatives of terror or crime victims — astonishingly including, in some cases, the phones of the very victims themselves — only makes the sordid practice worse.

The fact that such practices may have broken Britain’s privacy and bribery laws, and may have actually impeded criminal investigations, makes it worse yet.

But the ultimate result of such unethical practices is that it makes the rest of us look bad. If one newspaper, especially a venerable and widely-read newspaper, can have such utter disregard for ethics, why should the rest of us be trusted?

The responsible members of print and broadcast news have long been shadowed by the inaccuracy, exaggeration, sensationalism and unethical performance of the so-called tabloid media. Still, the amazing callousness exhibited by the News of the World has taken the debate to a whole new and very low level.

The editorial decisions that must have taken place in that newspaper’s offices are mind-boggling. With a little imagination, we can envision the editors trying to obtain information abut a prime minister’s political activities, but to bribe government officials to pry information about the unfortunate illness of the PM’s infant son?

We can even see a tabloid wanting to get the inside scoop on the royal family, but to hack the phones of families of soldiers killed in action, of a murdered teenage girl, of victims of terrorist subway bombings? Way beyond our understand- ing.

We are not being Pollyannas. We know that news reporting can be a rough and tumble business in which the subjects of coverage can sometimes be hurt.

Further, it’s clear that media practitioners sometimes have to utilize undercover tactics in order to get the facts straight. That is how corruption is exposed and how the government and other powerbrokers are kept honest. Watergate remains an obvious example.

But there are standards that must be adhered to, rights that must be respected, priorities that must be determined.

The motive for aggressive or investigative journalism must remain what it has always been: Is the story in the public interest?

Not in the public’s puerile or gossipy or lurid interest, mind you, but its genuine interest, as in, is it important to the public that it be made aware of certain information?

It is difficult if not impossible to cast the News of the World’s practice of phone hacking in a way that suggests any genuine public interest.

It is impossible, in fact, to describe such practices as anything other than a cynical and insensitive means to enhance the newspaper’s profit margin or influence — and as anything other than pure poison to true journalism.

We aren’t celebrating the demise of the News of the World. Our memories of the recent fall of the Rocky Mountain News — an honorable paper if ever there was one — are too fresh for anything like that.

But from the standpoint of democracy, and the media’s crucial place within it, the hard truth remains: It’s no huge loss.

Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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