The News of the World (NotW) debacle has, trite and pseudo-intellectual blogs aside, brought some terrible truths to the light. It has also provided us with a platform for moral indignation and allowed us to bemoan the closure of a newspaper in allegorical splendour! But my issues and concerns lie on the general populace who fund the journo's wrong behaviour!
An interview with shoppers regarding the story brought many similar comments along the lines of:
"I always wondered how they got their information!"
When asked if they would stop buying the paper each and every person said they wouldn't because it was 'interesting' and 'they enjoyed it'!
Not one person approved of the acts or means used to garner the information but none were willing to stop funding them. The height of hypocrisy and yet they don't stand alone for, and call me a cynic if you will, I get the feeling that the crime that separates the NotW and the other
Newspapers who report on this story is that of having been caught! If one hack hits on a means of getting its stories then others are usually not far behind!
Then, maintaining our 'what's in it for me' society we have people in possession of information, the police officers, who see themselves as selling that information as a legitimate 'perk' and by so doing provide means of damaging and influencing the case before them and cause further pain to those afflicted by the crime before them.
We need to see a few things:
1. the newspapers dealt with regarding the criminal acts,
2. The Police investigated and individuals brought to book whilst the institutional ills are remedied,
3. The newspapers brought under some form of control (which is odd because I've always baulked at this) regarding the way the operate and get their news, and
4. Society (in general and NOW readers and the like in particular) are made to realise that they promoted and funded the excesses that they now tut at and continue to sponsor.
Not clever, eloquent of wonderfully allegorical stuff I know, but valid all the same (I hope).
Pax
ps. Seems the NotW will give way to a Sun on Sunday - cynicism just keeps on going and growing, doesn't it?
3 comments:
You report truly for those I have heard discuss it say how much the dislike what has been done and yet state their intention to continue with their readership. Surely we get all we deserve and are authors of all we find distasteful.
T
The one historic misjudgement of public mood on the part of a Murdoch-owned paper was the Sun's editorial on the Hillsborough disaster. Since then, almost no one in Liverpool has bought the Sun. But then, the disaster affected pretty much the whole city in one way or another, and even a very belated attempt at an apology was not enough to change attitudes.
The public mood has been very much that as long as the scandal only affected "them" (the rich, powerful and/or famous), it was nothing to do with us. The revelations about the Milly Dowler case and others has changed that, but, I fear, only temporarily. It is up to the politicians and the other media (especially the Guardian) to keep this in the forefront of the public mind and to keep up the pressure for the News Corp management to be accountable both morally and in law, for its failings.
Good points both - think there is a fair degree of hypocrisy in the newspaper (and general) public and a fair amount of misjudgement of public mood, then and now, that warrants some investigation and action.
Thanks,
V
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