There is a lot of thinking to be done this morning.
We are at the heart of a media storm and the storm focuses on three key things
Firstly, the future of News International and its senior management
Secondly, the implications for the political and police establishment as we start to understand its complicity in what is starting to look like an systemic culture of corruption
Thirdly, the far more important and longer-term debate about the kind of media we, as a society, will tolerate and the balance within it between public interest and commercial interest.
As far as the first is concerned it seems hard to believe that the closure of the NOTW is the end of the story. More senior heads will have to roll surely. And I will be interested to see the Union response too!
For the second, we must wonder just how the PM and Downing Street generally will shake off the scandal of association with Andy Coulson. They will only weather the storm, if they are seen to take action on the third point. And to me that isn't just about a judge led enquiry into the phone hacking scandal.
This is, as I say, the fundamental issue. Should freedom of the press over-ride all other moral codes and values? As an example, do we want a press that is free to investigate and disclose celebrity mis-deeds as a matter of fact and of public interest? Or a press that is free to print pages of salacious detail as a matter of prurient interest to sell more papers?
It's a key question that defines the society we live in.
Where do you stand?
Friday, 8 July 2011
Thursday, 7 July 2011
The News is the News - and it matters to us how we respond
I was on the top deck of the number 201 bus to Stamford when I read on Twitter of the announced closure of the News of the World. I may be going over the top but it seemed like one of those key 'news' moments that you will always remember - an event of such profound significance that we will only understand it through the perspective of history.
Up until today News International seems to have been playing the classic media novice's game of 'close your eyes and hope it goes away'. To go from such a naive policy to such a comprehensive and newsworthy response is typical of the Murdoch approach.
And yet it remains to be seen just what this most dramatic of gestures achieves. News International is still the story, making, not breaking, news. And there will be many who wonder why the axe has fallen on many innocent employees while no one at the top has yet taken responsibility?
Fundamentally too, we have to hope that this isn't the end of the story. If this one gesture closes the account then we have missed the point.
And it is a point that has been at the heart of debate for quite some time. Because the emotionally charged hacking story is the counter-part of the equally vociferously voiced media onslaught on the whole injunction regime. What we need to understand is the balance we want in our society between freedom and responsibility within our media.
The media chaffed - in some cases quite rightly - under the constraints of the injunction regime. But did they really do so because they were championing the freedom of the press? Or because their ability to commercially exploit salacious stories was curtailed. The 'hacking' scandal, suggests that commercial gain is the prevailing value of our national media - and not just the News of the World.
Liberty, said John Milton long ago, is the freedom to do what you ought to do. Licence is the freedom to do what you want without thought for the consequences. Where does the balance lie in our modern media?
Up until today News International seems to have been playing the classic media novice's game of 'close your eyes and hope it goes away'. To go from such a naive policy to such a comprehensive and newsworthy response is typical of the Murdoch approach.
And yet it remains to be seen just what this most dramatic of gestures achieves. News International is still the story, making, not breaking, news. And there will be many who wonder why the axe has fallen on many innocent employees while no one at the top has yet taken responsibility?
Fundamentally too, we have to hope that this isn't the end of the story. If this one gesture closes the account then we have missed the point.
And it is a point that has been at the heart of debate for quite some time. Because the emotionally charged hacking story is the counter-part of the equally vociferously voiced media onslaught on the whole injunction regime. What we need to understand is the balance we want in our society between freedom and responsibility within our media.
The media chaffed - in some cases quite rightly - under the constraints of the injunction regime. But did they really do so because they were championing the freedom of the press? Or because their ability to commercially exploit salacious stories was curtailed. The 'hacking' scandal, suggests that commercial gain is the prevailing value of our national media - and not just the News of the World.
Liberty, said John Milton long ago, is the freedom to do what you ought to do. Licence is the freedom to do what you want without thought for the consequences. Where does the balance lie in our modern media?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)