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.
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>.
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