Phone hacking: a paper-thin apology?

So, Uncle Roopy managed to turn on some sort of sincerity when in private conference with the Dowler family and their legal team. Fair enough.

But, the brief worded statement printed in Britain’s national Sundays and elsewhere?  Words repeated /adapted from one of red-top Rebekah Brooks’ earlier statements as the #newsstainment NOTW was finally sacrificed?

”The News of the World was in the business of holding others to  account. It failed when it came to itself.

”We are sorry for the serious wrongdoing that occurred. We are deeply sorry for  the hurt suffered by the individuals affected.”

The News of the World* was in the business of holding others to account?  Others including Milly Dowler (what did she do that deserved being held to account)? The grieving families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan or other theatres of war or, indeed, families of 9/11 victims in the US (what did they do that they deserved to be held to account)?  A-, B- or even C-list celebs clearly not having done wrong? EPIC FAIL.

EPIC, EPIC FAIL.

(*And by News of the World, you can generally substitute News Corp, News International, even, it seems, The Sun)

"Hi Andy, sh*t mate, yah. W. T. F.? Yeah I know, they were only a few harmless exclusives. Not like we com-pletely destroyed peoples' lives, only moderately.."

And, seriously: when is Red-top Brooks going to actually, meaningfully apologise? A basic, simple, humble “I lied, screwed over so many innocent individuals and destroyed so many lives as Greg Miskiw pointed out” apology, complete with genuine remorse?

(Brooks) ‘I want to be absolutely clear that as editor of News of the World I had no knowledge whatsoever of phone hacking in the case of Milly Dowler and her family, or in any other cases during my tenure.”

Riiiight. So Brooks didn’t know sh*t, yet Rupert knew enough to actually man-up and apologise?  My back wheel she knew nothing.

(Brooks again) ‘I also want to reassure you that the practice of phone hacking is not continuing at the News of the World”.

Ah. ‘NOT CONTINUING”? So, it did happen at some point on Brooks’ watch?

(Brooks again) “‘The hurt and suffering caused to Milly Dowler’s family, and the many other alleged crime victims of phone hacking, is horrendous and inexcusable.”

So when is Brooks going to follow suit with Rupert Murdoch and a-p-o-l-o-g-i-s-e?

Because, don’t forget, it wasn’t just on the News of the World, but The Sun.

From illegally-accessed highly confidential, private and personal (I wonder if Brooks owns an Oxford dictionary to check out those definitions) medical documents about Gordon Brown’s sick child Fraser, Brooks knew (more) about Fraser and callously promised to publish details from those same confidential, private and personal files at the same time as the Browns were just beginning to come to terms with the discovery.

(Brooks again, this from her resignation letter, July 15) “… as well as the press freedoms we value so highly, are all at risk.”

What about the 4,000-odd individuals whose freedom to privacy was not just breached, but callously, sadistically annihilated?

FAIL. EPIC, EPIC FAIL.

When is this bullsh*t going to end?  When Brooks, Murdoch et al NOT ONLY apologise to ALL victims of their crime, but ALSO acknowledge that the material they ‘sourced’, the criminal methods they used, the operational grounds upon which they argued validity, never EVER amounted to news. EPIC, EPIC FAIL.

(Keywords: Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, News of the World, phone hacking, Milly Dowler, News Corp, News International, Andy Coulson (not mentioned above, but might as well include him in your Google searches; ditto James Murdoch), The Sun, #NOTW, newsstainment, #newsstainment)

Phone-hacking & newsstainment: a recap

So, where are we up to re the News of the World phone hacking?

• Journalists and senior editors & execs arrested and/or questioned by police and/or charged (so not the work of one ‘rogue reporter’ then, eh Rebekah?);
• One of the journos arrested once worked for the same very police force originally investigating the phone hacking scandal;
• FBI now set to investigate News Corp for hacking the phones of 9/11 victims;
• News Intl chief exec Rebekah Brooks Was Wade claims never to have known of any phone hacking or other illegal activities happening on her watch – EVEN THOUGH she was the one who called former PM Gordon Brown to tell him, “We’ve got some of your family’s personal, private & confidential medical records and even though it’s NOT NEWS we’re still going to publish details pretending it’s news.”;
• A reminder that none of the story outcomes of the phone hacking – quite apart from being illegal and based on totally private and confidential materials – is NOT NEWS. NOT NOW. NOT THEN. NOT EVER;

This list is quickly threatening to become endless and those of you even interested or having followed the long and sorry saga of this blatant criminal activity doubtless have your own news sources to keep track of. (This has been my chief source, and comprehensive it is, too).

It was disappointing, though perhaps inevitable, that blame would be pushed around; that politics would invariably become entangled in the issue, including the question of the BSkyB bid; that the chief players (RB, Andy Coulson, Murdoch snr and jnr and their insidious fellow cast members) would deny left, right and centre; that no end of commentators and observers – pro- and anti- News Corp – would flood the information sphere with all sorts of trivial angles and opinions, most of them a complete load of CRAP; and so on.

At the end of it all are these simple truths: hacking someone’s phone for a story is NOT on. There is no legit news story to come out of such a low act. Paying criminals to access private individuals’ private records is NOT on. There is no legit story to come out of that, either.  Paying off bent cops for tips is invariably nothing new (good luck with ever putting paid to that one).

It is, quite simply, NOT news. I’ve said this before: the advent of the internet and 24/7 news (TV, print, online, mobile) was perhaps inevitable. However, doing anything BUT sticking to some basic moral guidelines and journalist ethics, not to mention endeavouring to uphold the traditional – and STILL RELEVANT AND NECESSARY – pillars of journalism, was NOT inevitable.  It is purely and simply news as entertainment (no world exclusives in that statement, for sure). Newsstainment. A stain on news. A stain on news journalism. Journalism full stop.

And really, it’s got to stop.

News-stainment – the indelible stain on proper news journalism

It seems as good a time as any to add my 10 cents’ worth on the aftermath of the terrible mob attack on American TV news reporter Lara Logan while covering the recent volatile events in Egypt earlier this month.

Much was written, broadcast, blogged and tweeted about the incident, including in some places, a close focus on the sex assault that Logan was subjected to after being briefly separated from her camera crew amid a frenzied crowd.

To say the incident is abhorrent and disgusting invariably qualifies as understatement of the year.

However, so too was a good amount of the subsequent detailed reportage and commentary abhorrent: whether from citizen journalist, Joe Blogger or the professional media.  Moreover it was entirely unnecessary.

For too long now, journalists have increasingly become part of the news story they are dispatched to cover, and this has contributed irreversibly to the evolution of ‘news-stainment’ and, to an equal degree, ‘churnalism’.

Now, before anyone reading this opens their mouth without thinking, or reading to the end of this post, and screaming at me prematurely: I am not for a single second suggesting that Logan somehow contrived to become a story herself. Far from it. No one with half a brain would put themselves in such a dangerous situation thinking, very misguidedly, that it would help secure their 15 minutes.

(BTW: a lot of ‘pieces-to-camera’ [a.k.a. stand-ups, in TV news parlance: the few seconds where most shallow TV hacks with great faces for radio decide to talk inanely into camera] are totally unwarranted, but that’s another blog-moan).

No, what I’m talking about is the rest of the news media that made Logan a story. Just one example: witness the front page masthead image and accompanying caption ‘Egyptian mob turns on star US journalist’ on the front page of The Australian (Feb 17) this week.

Star journalist? Star?  I’m sure Logan is more than worth her salt and while I’ve not seen every last report she’s ever broadcast, I have seen enough to know that she keeps very busy and is dedicated to her job.

I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting Logan and briefly working alongside her when we covered the Greek embassy siege by Kurdish activists in London in 1999 for our own respective TV news stations. She is an immensely ambitious reporter in the true traditional spirit of the profession. A real news hound whose only interest lies in getting the story.

But, to hopefully underscore my point, who in the media focused on the other victims of the mob? How much coverage – read ‘sympathy and understanding’ – did those other victims receive?  Erm, next to zilch beyond a token mention. All the coverage was simply, almost salaciously, about the sex attack on Logan.

Before this develops a narrow focus, I’ll also reference a great piece filed on The Punch website this week, too. Columnist Tracey Spicer touched on the ‘reporter-as-star’ aspect in reviewing the return of 60 Minutes to television screens; in particular reporter Michael Usher’s interview with a grieving family who lost their baby daughter in the horrific Queensland floods.

I didn’t see the original broadcast, but there’s sufficient detail in Spicer’s article that spells out the un-necessariness of the TV reporter’s extensive presence in his own story. Maybe 60 Minutes would argue that is just part of the modern format of the show, but it only serves to further diminish quality, impartial journalism in favour of shallow, ratings-driven  news-stainment.

Of course, sadly we continue to head in the wrong direction insofar as hoping to ever turn around the cheap churnalism. Indeed there are citizen journalists and bloggers out there with a greater degree of sincerity and integrity by way of homage to the traditional pillars and values of true news journalism than actual, real, supposedly professional, paid journalists.

The advent of 24/7 news and the genesis / evolution of multimedia and social media tools and channels may have been inevitable but it’s no excuse for upholding a few basic news principles.

Unlike noisy children, the news media should be heard – but not seen. At least not as part of their own stories.