Beyond whether Brooks and Coulson knew of the illegal activities—and they surely did—they created and fostered the culture that led to them, as did the executives above them, from Les Hinton on up. Here’s Glenn Mulcaire, one of the private investigators the paper employed to hack into phones:
“Working for the News of the World was never easy. There was relentless pressure. There was a constant demand for results. I knew what we did pushed the limits ethically. But, at the time, I didn’t understand that I had broken the law at all.”
And former NotW journalist Paul McMullan, who says Brooks directly knew about the hacking, said this:
McMullan also spokes of the pressure NoW journalists were under — a reference to a statement made earlier by Mulcaire in which he said their was a “constant demand for results”.
He said: “You’re only as good as your next story, they used to do a byline count at the end of the year and if you didn’t have enough it was goodbye.”
This was a corporate culture gone mad. When these things happen it’s not because a couple of folks at the bottom happen to go off the rails together. It almost always comes from the top. A good amount of the responsibility for the crime, but especially the coverup, has to fall on Murdoch.
In just one week, the UK will decide whether to give Rupert Murdoch an even tighter stranglehold on its media by allowing him to purchase a majority stake in the dominant satellite TV provider BSkyB.
If Murdoch can increase his power even after a disastrous week like this when the hacking scandal suddenly went viral, there’s going to be no stopping the man.
— Further Reading:
Murdoch’s Hacking Scandal Gets Much Worse. The Guardian shows News Corporation at an all-time low (and that’s saying something)
Murdoch’s Hacking Scandal. Two stories cover the political, police, and press angles on the News Corp. coverup
The News Corp. Coverup. Memory-impaired execs, payments to key figures, and Keystone Kops
Anybody There? Why the UK’s phone-hacking scandal met media silence
A Times Must-Read on the News Corp. Hacking Scandal
Journalism Scandal at News Corp. A peek into Murdoch’s news culture.
Please, be serious. It appears that you hate Murdoch, but it'll take more than a single out-of-control tabloid to condemn the man. He takes some responsibility for being at the very top, but one would have to show similar abuses at a significant majority of his papers in order to indict Murdoch himself.
And all this hand-wringing about his media "stranglehold" is just poppycock, as the Brits might say. :) The internet has opened the field wide open for anyone. If Murdoch thinks he can salvage a former monopoly like BSkyB, let him try his hand at it, who cares. None of the News Corp stable, made up of former monopoly newspapers and TV channels, will survive the rabid competition from the internet. In the meantime, your hyperventilating about his control of these dying monopolies is just silly.
#1 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Wed 6 Jul 2011 at 09:38 AM
The vast majority still get their news from trusted sources, such as newspapers and television (about 67%). No web site is going to have the marketing resources of News International and most people haven't got the time to flirt from one web site to another. I point out that it was the Guardian who were able to break this story, not a lone blogger (and News International managed to keep a lid on it for sometime, using its strength in controlling the conversation in the UK).
#2 Posted by Paul Guinnessy, CJR on Wed 6 Jul 2011 at 01:45 PM
Got a source for that 67% figure, Paul? A lot more people read the NYT online than read the physical paper, new online sites shouldn't have much trouble hiving off those readers in droves. Marketing doesn't matter as much online, it's all about links. If people don't have time to flirt, they'll use online news aggregators like the Drudge report: that's what they do already. Yes, the Guardian broke this story, but many more have already been broken by bloggers. I wouldn't say News International "kept a lid" on it as much as the other papers and bloggers probably thought it was over with a couple of celebrity hackings.
I'll be the first to admit bloggers are not strong enough to take over the reporting job yet, largely because they still use dumb advertising models, but as paid subscription models take off, the bloggers will be all, as the Guardian and every other old newspaper won't survive the transition.
#3 Posted by Ajay, CJR on Fri 8 Jul 2011 at 05:54 PM