One of the biggest press scandals in history occurred in
2011 when revelations of the extent to which hacking was rampant at the News of
the World. Originally only celebrities were revealed to have been hacked and
although this did provoke anger from the public, it was a muted response
compared to what was to come.
It was when the Guardian published, on the 4th of
July, that the News of the World had hacked murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s
phone that the public got extremely angry. As the scandal unfolded it was found
out that the newspaper had also hacked victims of the 7/7 bombings’ families as
well as the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and the
possibility of the same for 9/11 victims. It was when people saw grieving, ordinary
families suffer at the hands of a mighty company that the rage set it. It
wasn’t long until the News of the World was shut down permanently.
Yet the ramifications of the phone hacking scandal are far
from over. Police corruption is being investigated as to how the newspaper
gained some of the phone numbers and the
Leveson Inquiry has been set up to investigate press standards and looks at all
UK papers, especially the tabloids. The scandal also has caused major problems
for the person that owned the newspaper, Rupert Murdoch. He was forced to
abandon his bid to buy the majority of BSkyB due to public resentment for him.
His son, James Murdoch, claims that he did not know what was going on at the
News of the World despite receiving an email from a senior editor saying that
hacking went far beyond the Glenn Mulcaire case. James Murdoch claims that he
did not read the entire email and that he did not know hacking was rampant.
This effectively means that he’s either lying or he’s incompetent.
2012 will definitely be an important year for the press in
the UK, as the question over whether or not they will have to submit to tighter
regulations will have to be answered.
Rupert Murdoch
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