Keep press freedom unfettered

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/07/2011 (5349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The scandal involving Rupert Murdoch and his now boarded-up newspaper News of the World has already reached epic proportions and it is still growing. When Larry Flynt, of Hustler magazine, can claim the high ground in the ethics of journalism — “No matter how offensive and distasteful some people may find Hustler … no one has appeared unwillingly in their pages,” he wrote in the Washington Post — we should know we have a problem. 

That comment was a reference to ethical and criminal charges being levelled against News of the World and Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp. communications empire. Those allegations include hacking into telephone conversations, the bribery of police officers, political favouritism, professional hanky-panky between journalists and politicians and coercing criminal behaviour.

And those might just be the beginning as Mr. Murdoch, his son James, and one of his top executives, Rebekah Brooks, are scheduled today to appear before a British parliamentary committee investigating the allegations. Ms. Brooks already faces criminal charges.

American Democrats have called for a similar inquiry in the United States, where News Corp.’s media presence is huge and several senior Murdoch executives have resigned, although that reaction seems the result more of political opportunism than any reasoned judgment.

Both the British Parliament and police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the scandal. If criminal activity is found to have taken place, then those responsible for it should be prosecuted, no matter what level of what profession they may occupy.

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No matter what the outcome, some good may come of this if it makes all journalists more acutely conscious of the serious ethical responsibilities that freedom of the press places upon them. News of the World forgot that, and in forgetting did some serious harm to journalists and newspapers everywhere. How far up the chain of News Corp. the blame goes is what these investigations must determine, but that is really all they need to do. This is not an argument, as critics of the media are already demanding, for closer government regulation of the press.

It was, after all, the press, doing the real job of journalism — to find out what’s going on and inform the public — that exposed this scandal. The Guardian, in particular, and the New York Times and other newspapers unearthed what News of the World was doing and exposed it for everyone to see. There is no case here for new regulations to muzzle the media, but there is a powerful argument for an unfettered free press.