It makes me worry when Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is quoted on the hacking scandal as saying ‘the pillars of the establishment are crumbling’. Hasn’t anybody told you Nicky, son of a banker, Westminster boy, you, too, are the establishment? Clegg gripe aside, it does seem all the politicians are rushing to show how zealous they are in their newfound hatred of News International. Old friends become enemies – while in the case of the Liberal Democrats, they can feel smug that they never had cause or opportunity to press flesh with Murdoch. But is all this focus on News International missing something?
It’s five years since the Information Commissioner presented his report ‘What Price Privacy?’ on illegal information gathering by the printed media. Its key findings, taken from police investigations under Operation Motorman between 2002 and 2006, showed The News of the World to be only number five on a list of newspapers and magazines trading in illegal information. Number one was The Daily Mail (952 transactions), followed by The Sunday People (802), Daily Mirror (681) and Mail on Sunday (266). The NoTW made a modest 228 trades. Best Magazine came in just behind The Sunday Mirror with 134 trades. Over 300 journalists were involved. Surely not all of this can have been justified as in the public interest? Those investigations only produced 2 successful prosecutions. No one involved was fined more than £5000.
‘What Price Privacy?’ made clear a full five years ago that newspapers were involved in rampant law-breaking – and no politician or policeman dared to stop them. Until now. My question. Will either of the two inquiries announced by David Cameron be looking at the whole trade in illegal information, beyond phone hacking at News International? Will other newspaper editors and owners be called to account for themselves? If they are not, then almost certainly most culprits in this business will breath a huge sigh of relief as they delete the last of the incriminating emails. Phew, Murdoch took the rap – and we got away with it!
No comments:
Post a Comment