Slow news weeks, not





July 13th, 2011

July/ August was in past times the ’silly season’, when improbable stories got through the copy taster and into print. This time, in the UK, the establishment, including past and present governments, the media, the police, the regulators, are all caught up in a story that will run and run. The phone hacking scandal gets worse and worse, having reached a new, deplorable low with allegations relating to the hacking of missing Milly Dowler’s telephone in 2002. The story is now gaining also a global traction with US shareholders mobilizing. At the heart of it, the concentration of power in the UK media in the hands of News Corp., the dubious panderings, promoted by this over many years, and an alleged coverup of criminal activity in hacking telephone messages and paying the police for tipoffs. Reputations are dissolving fast, and what, for a former communication chief himself, was David Cameron thinking when he forged ahead, against many contrarians, in hiring Andy Coulson? As to the heroes of the piece so far? The Guardian for tenacity, Vanity Fair for a June in-depth, pulling the story through, and the New York Times. If journalism and its ethics are in the dock, some beacons of good practice must also be credited with bringing the broader and deeper story to light, disheartening as the detailing of it may turn out to be.

Categories: Behavior , Communication Comments Off on Slow news weeks, not | Print this Post | Email this Post

Comments are closed.