News of the World, Money, Hacking and Morals
Posted: Sunday, July 17, 2011
by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
It’s not often that journalists have to write the obituary of their own newspaper but that happened last week when the British tabloid News of the World informed its readers that their source of celebrity gossip and other news items would be shutting down for good.
"We praised high standards, we demanded high standards but, as we are now only too painfully aware, for a period of a few years up to 2006 some who worked for us, or in our name, fell shamefully short of those standards," the paper’s website announced. However, repeated reports of not-so-high-standard journalism suggest that the News of the World has not revealed the whole truth of this matter. Reporters obviously made a habit of hacking telephones and paying for potential scoops, for instance.
While News of the World might not be Wikileaks 2.0, these two news-making medias share some features that most probably have not made the world a better place for humanity. The demise of the newspaper, owned by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is certainly no cause for tears.
That the paper did not become extinct much earlier might say something about the sordid state of tabloid journalism and the willingness of its readers to keep on reading news items that can hardly be characterized as edifying.
Many newspapers have come a long way from their original mission of educating the public. Ages ago, entertainment surpassed education as the raison d’etre for the tabloid press. With money and fame playing major roles in publishing, it is perhaps no wonder that morals have to a great extent been left behind.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)I agree absolutely, Joel. That publication should never have been profitable. Such is the state of things.Thanks, Ken. I suspect that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg.
Entertainment and money - that's what it seems to be about. I remember when the television first came on the market, that the intent was to educate the public, but we can see what happened to that idea.Right. It's all about money.
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