And consider something else. In 2006, the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s explored, the illegal trade in private information (pdfs), mostly in the form of blagging, which is misrepresenting oneself or otherwise lying to get someone to reveal something they shouldn’t. The perps: mostly private eyes. The buyers: in many cases, journalists. In one major case, the ICO found fully 305 reporters had been buyers of ill-gotten info. The papers involved ran the gamut of the U.K. press scene (but not our heroes, the Guardian). Put it this way, NotW came in fifth! Murdoch’s paper, with a mere 182 transactions by 19 journalists, was a piker compared to the Daily Mail—952 deals by 58 journos! Even quality papers, the Observer (103 deals/4 journos), the Sunday Times (52/7). Even Marie Claire!
It’s like bangers and mash over there; it’s everywhere.
(For a good primer on British tabloid culture, read this new Anthony Lane piece in the New Yorker. UPDATE: For a better one, exploring the role played by Murdoch’s tabloids in British political life, read Anthony Barnett.)
In 1978, I thrilled to the Chicago Sun-Times “Mirage” series that had reporters set up a tavern to report on all the city inspectors who came to shake it down. The series was a blockbuster and led to all sorts of reforms, but it was denied the Pulitzer because of the deception it used. And the tactic has largely been shunned in the MSM ever since.
And I should mention that the American papers’ (non-criminal, but for Gallagher) misdeeds were at least in the service of trying to root out corruption, etc., not trying to get the skinny, as Nick Davies put in a different context, on “Bonking headmaster, Lonely heart, Dirty vicar, Street stars split, Miss World bonks sailor, Dodgy landlord, Judge affair, Royal maid, Witchdoctor, Footballer, TV love child, Junkie flunkie, Orgy boss,” etc. (Bonus material: see this great Telegraph collection of NotW hacked page ones.)
What makes us so great? We’re not. The point obviously isn’t that we don’t have serious journalism problems here. As I’ve written, one need only cite our pre-Iraq War coverage. And is there a more severe critic of pre-financial-crisis Wall Street coverage than yours truly? Well, sure, Danny Schechter. But I’m up there. These professional failures are in many ways far more consequential than British ethical failures and even legal violations.
And what about TMZ, Gawker, the National Enquirer, etc.? They pay for news. This is true. It’s another post, and it’s not good. But, again, no crimes. And not even much blagging. Gawker defends gossip, which is fine, and even paying for news, which is really, really problematic, to say the least (paying cops? do we really want to do that?) but it’s clear that the Gawk and the U.S. gossip press are an ocean away from NotW.
And what about News Corp.’s American properties? The FBI is looking into whether 9/11 victim’s phones were hacked, but even as alleged, it’s NotW, and the evidence for that is dodgy. Fox is accused of having a black ops office. On that, I’ll just say, Fox, unlike U.K. tabs, doesn’t rely on scoops for its bread-and-butter, just “fair and balanced” commentary. Indeed, the worst things it does to the discourse are legal.
A. C. Grayling had one of the better lines of the scandal when he accused Murdoch of taking NotW, and thus, all of British tabloids, “from the gutter into the sewer.”
Us, we’re still safely in the gutter.
But there’s trouble on the horizon.
*See” “Story of a Story: How Cincinnati Paper Ended Up Backing Off From Chiquita Series —- Enquirer Supported Reporter Until Voice-Mail Affair Forced a Costly Reversal —- Page 1 Apology: Never Mind”; By Alix M. Freedman and Rekha Balu; 7/17/98
Independent: Tom Watson: 'It has seemed like surfing a giant wave for two weeks' The Monday Interview Tom Watson tells Martin Hickman about his role as scourge of the Murdochs, and why his battle isn't over Monday, 25 July 2011
[He has an interest in technology and was one of the first MPs to blog and use Twitter. While many newspapers were not reporting the scandal, social media was "key", he recalls, adding that the papers that did investigate were "The Independent, the Independent on Sunday, the Guardian and FT".
"The other papers were not reporting the story, so it was social media that kept the issue alive and many thousands of people on social media have been concerned that a cover up has taken place.
"I think the story might not have come about had not people using social media expressed their outrage. Certainly without Facebook or Twitter a consumer boycott of the advertisers of the News of the World would not have been organised so quickly."]
#1 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Mon 25 Jul 2011 at 12:31 PM
The Guardian and Telegraph have set the pace for phone hacking live news blogs. Despite Telegraph skill in incorporating Twitter, The Guardian has pulled away--its coverage today is superior. Meanwhile, The New York Times has about.com.
I see this story in a different way. The true contrast is between the plasticity of UK media and the obsolescence of American media. (How could we have had the bizarre "Education Life" in The NYT Sunday, as a substitute for a Higher Education section, as in The Australian? The best move by The NYT this week: the new Book Review column by Geoff Dyer. However, ironically, the somewhat dazed editors at the BR failed to proof this sentence: "The depths of self-absorption that makes this possible are hard to fathom."
Georgina Henry named head of guardian.co.uk
Current head of culture of Guardian and Observer takes role as Janine Gibson moves to US to lead GNM's new digital operation
Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk, Monday 25 July 2011 10.26 BST [...]
[In an email to staff Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief of GNM, also announced further appointments to the US operation.
Adam Gabbatt will be the Guardian's New York live blogger, Aidan Geary will be going to the US as executive producer, Tim Hill will be the deputy production editor, and Nell Boase will relocate to New York as managing editor.
Matt Wells, guardian.co.uk blogs and networks editor, Guardian senior reporter Karen McVeigh and sports blogs editor Steve Busfield are also relocating to New York.]
#2 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Mon 25 Jul 2011 at 12:55 PM
[The papers involved ran the gamut of the U.K. press scene (but not our heroes, the Guardian). Put it this way, NotW came in fifth! Murdoch’s paper, with a mere 182 transactions by 19 journalists, was a piker compared to the Daily Mail—952 deals by 58 journos! Even quality papers, the Observer (103 deals/4 journos), the Sunday Times (52/7).]
Phone hacking investigation widens to sale of private details
Police handed files from Operation Motorman, which found 3,522 suspected cases of media having illegal access to records
James Ball and Jamie Thunder
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 21 July 2011 17.29 BST
[The files were the basis for the information commissioner's report, in 2006, entitled What Price Privacy Now?, which identified 3,522 occasions when 305 journalists requested information that the commission believed was likely to have been obtained illegally.
The Daily Mail topped its list, with 952 identified transactions, followed by the Sunday People with 802 and Daily Mirror with 681. The Observer, published by Guardian News & Media, was further down the list, with four journalists said to have accessed information on 103 occasions.]
The readers' editor on… the Observer and the private investigator
Stephen Pritchard The Observer, Sunday 13 February 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/feb/13/observer-phone-hacking-private-investigators
#3 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Mon 25 Jul 2011 at 01:27 PM
Dean, I agree with your point about cultural differences, but take issue with your commendation of Anthony Lane's piece, which is precisely the sort of superficial--though characteristically sparkling--work one expects from him. He treats the lust for tabloid monstrosity as a curious British custom without exploring what Murdoch has used it for--fronting a top-level position in the British political class, which is thankfully now rocky. He takes Murdoch's lust for slime as an odd quirk rather than as an accompaniment to a *politics* or rather, a political-economic position. The best treatment of the larger picture is Anthony Barnett's: http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/anthony-barnett/after-murdoch/ I heartily recommend it.
#4 Posted by Todd Gitlin, CJR on Mon 25 Jul 2011 at 09:46 PM
@Todd: So Murdoch isn't just politically wrong - he's evil too? Still, I wonder if Murdoch at his worst ever said anything as utterly myopic and hyper-partisan as this ditty:
"Repeat after me:. Again. And again. Vary the details. There are plenty. Somebody on the ‘list posted a strong list of McCain lies earlier today. Hammer it. Philosophize, as Nietzsche said, with a hammer.”
#5 Posted by JLD, CJR on Tue 26 Jul 2011 at 12:41 PM
Todd,
I thought Lane gave a decent cultural tour of the U.K. tabloid scene, a longstanding object of curiosity for me, but, yup, Barnett goes much deeper. I'll add a link above.
#6 Posted by Dean Starkman, CJR on Tue 26 Jul 2011 at 05:26 PM