The British tabloid, The News of the World, which for years on end served the most sensational and salacious news has been buried. In the past two years, it descended to an all time low. An investigative journalist on the Guardian, Nick Davies has brought about the tabloid’s demise. He wrote a story reporting that James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch who owned the tabloid, had paid 1 million pounds as part of a secret deal to buy the silence of one of the victims of his editorial staff’s illegal activities. The paper’s reporters hacked into the cell phones of public figures and gained access to highly confidential data. This report however did not prompt the paper to act against the erring reporters nor did the paper change its editorial policy. On the contrary, it got deeper into the gutter doing underhand deals. Public reaction was vehement. Readers stayed away and advertisers gave it a wide berth. Finally, James Murdoch acknowledged his ‘inhuman editorial behaviour’ which had no legitimate purpose. The mass circulation publication had to close down.
The closure of The News of the World will not put an end to the prying jobs which sometimes go for investigative journalism. Reporters fancying themselves to be news hounds tap phones and adopt other illegal means to access classified information. They claim that it is for the good of the people. The media is of course supposed to dig in to dig out news which is intentionally kept under wraps. But that should not encroach on the right to privacy. Liberty should not degenerate into licence. Phone-tapping can be permitted only when a journalist is on to explosive news about shameful scandals. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces a serious crisis as one of the Prime Minister’s former aides has been found involved and arrested. Cameron is against such journalism and the hacking of phones. There is however, another side of the coin. If some prying into personal lives was not allowed, Gary Hart would have run for the US Presidency and British MPs would have got away with the practice of accepting money for asking questions in the House.