Some years ago, at a management retreat held by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the senior managers and their distinguished guests returned from lunch to find freshly minted copies of the Times — the original London Times, that is — lying on their chairs. This was slightly odd because the afternoon speaker was Kelvin Mackenzie, then the imaginative editor of its much less respectable neighbor, the noisy, populist tabloid Sun.
Still, Mr. Mackenzie bounded up to the lectern and genially invited his audience to look through his rival’s stories. What did they think of them? Solid responsible reporting? Or dull conventional stuff? Which was it?
The audience, doubtless suspecting a trap, indicated cautious approval.
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Whereupon Mackenzie expressed unfeigned delight since, as he told them, the paper they were reading was composed word for word from stories originally written and published in the Sun and then re-printed for the occasion in a Times broadsheet format.
Managers from the Times present were not best pleased, but everyone else was amused and, more important, thoughtful. Mackenzie had taught them several valuable lessons, including “don’t judge a book by its cover” and “give a dog a bad name (and you can get away with hanging it”.)
Denunciations of tabloids in general and of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids in particular have been crowding both the front pages and the airwaves since the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World broke in earnest over the summer. The attack has gradually widened to include the entire News Corporation stable of news providers — the Times, the Sun, Fox News, Sky News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, more than 150 Australian newspapers, etc., etc., etc. And until this weekend the attacks had gone largely un-resisted, or answered with high-minded assertions of corporate and editorial responsibility — which is much the same thing.
An apologetic attitude was probably inevitable because the phone-hacking scandal is a real and serious one. NewsCorp (News International in the UK) had to make clear it regretted that the NOTW had both hacked into the mobile phones of celebrities and had paid police for information. Closing down the NOTW — where these practices were most egregious — established that regret. So did setting up a Management and Standards committee to sift through internal memos and pass along anything damaging to the legal authorities. Arguably, however, these steps went too far — costing jobs at NOTW, perhaps revealing the names of sources, cooperating with a police “fishing expedition,” and conceding widespread criminality too readily.
Above all, this stance of constant apology effectively meant that the company was unable to make certain key points in its own defense. For instance, all newspapers pay police for information; there would be no good crime reporting unless they did so. Nor is the practice necessarily illegal even in Britain if the newspaper can demonstrate that revealing the information was in the public interest. Both those points also apply, if less strongly, to telephone hacking.
Thank you for clearing away the pea-soup (fog) of both the British and the American press censorship. We must defend the right of a free press even when we disagree with what its says or "reports". Even when the news is "ugly" or inconvenient. We are adults we can determine what views we will support or reject. We do not need a parent to filter what we see.
Not too long ago Hitler determined the value of controlling all the means of communication. Helene Bertha Amalie ("Leni") Riefenstahl's cinematic efforts proved the old adage, "a picture is worth a thousand words." But it was Hitler's picture; it was his vision and it was his words. Further it was his will.
Hitler was not satisfied with complete control of the cinema or the news; he burnt books, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered countless who respectfully disagreed with his social-planning agenda and his efforts to limit what information was available to the masses.
We looked on.in horror. We stood speechless and numb. Some cried, "How could those who call themselves part of the human race inflict on their fellow humans such pain and suffering? How could they torture, experiment, and murder? The sheer scale of those murdered was unbelievable. But it was true. We had the proof. How did we come to have the truth? The free press showed us the films and pictures; the free press documented in great detail the carnage. There was no denying the horrific truth. All this information was brought forward because of a free press. If Hitler had his way we would never have known the depths of evil lurking behind the doors of the Third Reich.
Do you think there is a lesson to be learned here?
Does this most recent attack on a free press warrant defending the "true" freedom of the press or are we going to sit on the sidelines and wait until the political correct, diversity police come after us? Our way of life here in the United States is being assaulted from all sides. The press is only one example.
The revelation that our president supports the "killing", I meant that word literally, of new born children is vile, unacceptable, and horrific. The Left would prefer we call the new born infant a fetus. Why? Because it does not sound so bad if you "do away with a non-viable fetus." The use of the previous phrase should send chills up our spines. In the Left's jargon "doing away with a non-viable fetus" is like taking out the garbage. Or is it?
Believe it or not the reporting in clear, direct, accurate language the distinction between life and non-life is the duty of a free press.
For those who believe in prayer, this is the time for pray. It is also the time to follow prayer with work. So we must be up and about. We must do whatever we can to insure that our press remains free.
Aside: We can be certain that if today our press becomes censored tomorrow the Word of God will be censored, the very name of God will be censored. Once one freedom disappears a second is sure to follow. Soon we will not be free.
I grew up in London, and there's a complete misunderstanding here.
The real scandal isn't the phone-tapping, or bribing the police. Both of these are crimes, sure and News International as a company is guilty as sin, but not very big ones. And neither were ever really secrets: this scandal was bubbling under for about a year or so before it really came out.
The scandal is that Murdoch was so powerful, owning both the UK's main satellite TV system and three major newspapers (all among Britain's biggest in their markets), that nobody was brave enough to make this a big story except the Guardian (which is owned by a charitable foundation) and the BBC (not controlled by anyone).
Here's an article on how the chairman of the UK Parliament's committee on the media warned his team not to investigate News International: External Link
And one about a News International employee being paid to trail a member of that committee: External Link
And one on how the London police's press spokesman was paid
And one by a former journalist on how botched the first investigations into phone hacking were with his take on it: External Link
And one on how News International had tapped the phone of the person who led and botched that investigation: External Link
And another on how News International took his boss out for dinner: External Link
And one about how he also had a £12,000 holiday arranged for him as a freebie by a phone-hacking suspect (who he had also given a job to): External Link
