Y U hack my phone ?!

How far do journalists really need to go to get news and information for the public?

Source: The Hindu

Source: Press TV

The phone hacking scandal caused by the Murdoch media empire made headlines for days.

Tristan Stewart-Robertson explores the issue of  Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World (NOTW), hacking into the phones of the public people to obtain information which in turn will become news published to the public (2011). This has brought into the consideration of tabloidization and the invasion of privacy. Some see the public as the one to be blamed as they have an insatiable appetite for information, whereas others see the topic of phone-hacking as the need for media outlets to create a sensational pieces of news to sell their product due to competitions with other media outlets (Stewart-Robertson, 2011).

I believe that the UK phone-hacking scandal demonstrates the clash of privacy with need to know. I will use both the principles of tabloidization and the principles of the invasion of privacy to support my thesis.

In his journal article, Frank Esser describes ‘tabloidization’ as the result of commercialized media usually pressured by the advertisers to reach a large audience (1999, p.291). An alternative definition to it, as Howard Kurtz believes, is the ‘decrease in hard news such as politics and economics and an increase in soft new such as sleaze, scandal, sensation, and entertainment’, is more precise and explains the basis of the UK phone-hacking issue, where it has been reported that the media is often under pressure to feed the ever-existing news appetite of the public which can be very demanding (2009, p.293). Darrell West opines that the reasons for tabloidization include the need for profit and pressure from other competing media outlets (West, n.d.). Hence, journalists often cross the line of privacy to obtain information.

Source: Informm's Blog

This image lays out more of News of the World's phone-hacking crime.

Clarence Jones writes that technology enables the media to intrude into the private lives of just anyone (Jones 2005). The reason the media practices the invasion of privacy to get their news may be because the Bill of Rights protect the citizens from intrusion from the government, but not from private media companies or journalists (Jones 2005). Thus, journalists have less respect for a person’s private life. Some journalists even hack into the phones of public figures in hopes that they will obtain sensationalizing information which could help create a stir in the news.

Therefore, saying that the UK phone-hacking scandal shows clash of privacy with need to know would be precise.


To read the original newspaper article on the topic, click here.

References: 

Esser, F 1999, ‘Tabloidization of News: A Comparative Analysis of Anglo-American and  German Press Journalism’, SAGE, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 291-324.

Jones, C 2005, Invasion of Privacy, Winning with the News Media, viewed 26 October 2011, <http://www.winning-newsmedia.com/privacy.htm>.

Stewart-Robertson, K 2011, ‘UK Phone-Hacking Scandal Shows Clash of Privacy with Need to Know’, MediaShift, 7 July, viewed 26 October 2011, <http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/07/uk-phone-hacking-scandal-shows-clash-of-privacy-with-need-to-know188.html>.

West, n.d., The Tabloidization of the Media, Inside Politics, viewed 27 October 2011, <http://www.insidepolitics.org/ps111/tabloids.html>.

You removed THE HILLARY CLINTON from the newspaper ?!

Is news really all that reliable and trustworthy? How sure can we be that what is presented to us is true?

The article by The Guardian examines the issue of a picture which have been altered and published to the public by Di Tzeitung, an Orthodox Jewish newspaper (2011). The paper removed the image of the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the counterterrorism director Audrey Tomason from the picture, explaining that it was immodest of their culture to publish images of females to the public (The Guardian, 2011). After reading the article, I would have to say that we cannot rely on the media entirely as they practice picture manipulation.

The following is the original picture:

Source: The Guardian

The following is the altered picture:

The Source: The Guardian

My thesis can be related to the principle of picture manipulations in the media. Professor Paul Martin Lester mention in a chapter of his book that picture manipulations have been a part of photography ever since it was introduced to the public (Lester 1995). It has even been practiced during the period in which the First World War took place, primarily for propaganda purposes (Lester 1988). 

Technology in today's society. 

In today’s society, picture manipulations have gone to a whole new level as we have all the convenient computer programs such as Adobe Photoshop to aid us in doing so (Lester 1995). Although photojournalism has a tendency to reveal truth in the pictures, more photojournalists are manipulating pictures to create an illusion in the public’s mind.

My thesis can also be explained using the principle of distrust in the media. Adrian Monck reminds the public that the media business primarily aims to grad the public’s attention, thus making it a very competitive business which may explain why both journalists and photojournalists may exaggerate their work in hopes that it will only be able to grab the public’s attention (2008). In an article by The New York Times, Richard Perez-Pena found a survey concluding that the public’s trust in the media has increasingly declined as the public are finding reporting as biased and inaccurate (2009). 

A survey of 1,506 people revealed that 63% of the public view newspaper articles as inaccurate and often favored one side or the other (Perez-Pena, 2009). Thus, with principles regarding the rise in the practice of picture manipulations and distrust in media, my thesis is proven; that the media should not be relied on too much.


To read the original newspaper article on the topic, click here.




Reference List:


Lester, P 1995, Photojournalism Ethics Timeless Issues, College of Communications, California State University, viewed 26 October 2011, <http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/photoethics.html>.




Lester, P 1988, Faking images in photojournalism, College of Communications, California State University, viewed 25 October 2011, <http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/faking.html>. 

Perez-Pena, R 2009, 'Trust in News Media Falls To New Low in Pew Survey', The New York Times, viewed 26 October 2011, <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/media/14survey.html>.


2011, 'Orthodox Jewish paper apologizes for Hillary Clinton deletion', The Guardian, 10 May, viewed 25 October 2011, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/10/jewish-paper-apologises-hillary-clinton>.