Beg borrow steal', is allowed in journalism, when it comes to news-gathering. But, snooping on somebody is a crime
Beg borrow steal', is allowed in journalism, when it comes to news-gathering. But, snooping on somebody is a crime. Bribing someone (police in this case) is even more a serious offence. And that is the reason why Rupert Murdoch's News of the World (NOTW) has shut down.
The global media mogul could not throw his weight around in London to save the 168-year-old Sunday tabloid even as its star editors are facing prosecution. With the last edition hitting the streets, on Sunday, an era ended. This also saw the end of the pre-eminent political influence of the last three decades in Britain.
Murdoch's pass to the prime minister's office is withdrawn; the access code for his editors and senior executives has expired.
NOTW's mischief was not a small thing to ignore. Its editors had hired private detectives to eavesdrop on family members of a teenaged girl, who was abducted and then killed, in 2002. Phones hacked and mails of the girl deleted in turn misleading investigators. Also instances of NOTW bribing police to acquire information, and interfering with a murder investigation emerged.
This has disgraced even the UK government as the then editor of the tabloid Andy Coulson was the media in-charge for theu00a0 PM David Cameron. While he is under pressure to take action against Murdoch, Cameron has asked the media baron to sack his chief executive Rebekah Brooks. But, it is not helping to bail him out of the issue.
The Guardian, unearthed this through a sting operation. "NOTW's end is the price Murdoch set to pay to halt the accelerating erosion of the British wing of his international empire and to secure full ownership of 'the cash machine', satellite broadcaster BskyB", said in its editorial.
All this is a result of the dog fight between the media houses that has taken the toll on the very credibility. The lesson to learn is: media must remain within its ethical limits lest the hacks would be seen as the hackers and tools in the hands of powerbrokers.
A female reporter was fired by a local channel in Bangalore after she was found tipping off a gangster about police planning to eliminate him in an encounter. The rumour is that the gangster paid her with a handsome reward. Imagine if it were a rival gang in the place of the police, and if she had been killed, our condolences would have beatified her to the sainthood.
Pray, god spares us talking about the 'rogue reporters' in the same breath when we remember J Dey, who stood for values of journalism before giving away his life for it.
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