I am utterly disgusted. One could kid themselves that they'll change the face of Journalism, but reality is, I will be nothing but a speck of a dust when it comes to a list of all the Journalists. I'll make no difference what so ever. The last few days, I've begun to reconsider my life plans. Why would anyone willingly become associated with those selfish, incompetent, money sucking, bastard scumbags? That's not to say that these allegations have tainted what it means to be a Journalist; that happened many years ago, but this just highlights how awful those people are. Bastards!
This blog has been written slowly over a course of 10 days (however, it won't seem like it when you read it), and not because I couldn't be bothered to do it, just because this story has moved so quickly, it would just mean that paragraphs of writing would be benign before I even finished the blog, let alone published it.
Anyway, so this story has been going on for years (since 2003 I do believe), with it slowly coming out that politicians like John Prescott and Boris Johnson, as well as celebrities like Hugh Grant and Gwyneth Paltrow, had their phones hacked, and they got a bit angry, and small debates started on Newsnight and Question Time, The Guardian got uppity and the story went away, after a Police Investigation which (now, rather ironically) said that nothing illegal had occurred. Then July 2011 happened and now, within a week, the face of the media has altered drastically and Journalists are hated more than a love child between Katy Price and Piers Morgan would be.
What has all the recent fuss actually been about I hear the ignorant population trying to speculate. Well, essentially, some Journalists have lost sight of what it means to be a Journalist. I have always thought the news was to explain in a clear, unbiased way, the recent events that have been happening locally and World-wide. When Murdoch came to our shores and brought with him his ruthlessness that seemed to change. Now Journalists seek out news stories that they think will help grab that coveted front page headline (Worth up to £100,000 remember), and therefore sell more papers. 'Investigative Reporting' this is called. They will go to any means to find out a dirty secret about someone in the media spotlight, because APPARENTLY, that's what the public want. No, I don't care that someone I've heard of has slept with a hooker. I don't think a majority of the public DO want that. I think they want to be informed in an intelligent, non-patronising manner, about the current news to gain a better understanding of life on our planet.
It came out nearly two weeks ago now that investigative reporting went to the dirty lows where no morals exist and tampered with a murder inquiry just so they could have more people crying for longer to drag a story out. Milly Dowler is the first example we're told of. In 2002, she was abducted before being murdered. However, despite being murdered, she still managed to delete voice messages. As you can see, before they found her body (which took 6 months, a heck of a long and excruciating time for her family you understand), they thought she was alive and listening to her messages. That gave her family and friends false hope. That is despicable. Who could do such a thing? Well, a News Of The World journalist of course. That 'journalist' had hacked the phone of Milly Dowler and was listening to the heartbreaking messages from her loved ones on her phone. And when her voice mail become full, he deleted messages so that more people could leave heartbreaking messages for him to carry on listening to and continue to drag out the story. Yeah, I think if hell exists, there is a place reserved for him down there.
This was what led to this phone hacking scandal to go nuclear, and it then came out that all high profile child murder enquiries would have to be reopened due to it being possible that journalists from the News Of The World had done the same thing.
Then more and more despicable and shameful storied leaked out of the Guardian and the BBC, day after day about the News Of The World hacking peoples phones and bribing policemen. It was revealed that the mobile phones of the victims and the families of the London terrorist attacks (or 7/7 as the media refer to it as), have been hacked, again to listen to all the heartbreaking, upsetting messages that concerned people would have left for them. It was revealed that maybe even the victims from the New York terrorists attack (9/11 as the media refer to it as) had been hacked and now that's being investigated by the FBI. It came out that the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been hacked. It came out that Gordon Brown had his personal information hacked and The Sun wanted to reveal the news that his son has cystic fibrosis. It was suggested that a private investigator gave personal details of the senior royal family for £1000 a time. It was also, very worryingly, revealed that some reporters paid members of the Metropolitan police to gain these personal numbers and details which led to some of these hackings in the first place. All very hard hitting, shocking stuff.
And after all that news came out, News Of The World closed and will never print again. However, give it a few months and a new paper will take its place, don't worry. Andy Coulson, who was once editor, was arrested, but that's where this story became a witch hunt. Rebekah Brooks wasn't arrested, she wasn't even sacked. Sure, 11 days later, she resigned, but she's still not been arrested. 200 people lost their jobs when News Of The World closed, and for the most part, despite the reputation of the paper, it had some of the best journalists in the country; World even. Very talented, innocent people. Only a few hacked, not all of them. Is it fair they lost their jobs? Not in the slightest. I will give you some figures though: The newspaper printed 2.5 million copies every Sunday. On the final Sunday, they printed under 5 million copies. The front page boasted '7.5 million loyal readers'. They're great journalists, but mathematicians they're not...
This all came at a very poignant time for the media industry. News Corporation, for some time now, has been trying to buy the complete rights to BSkyB. They already own a percentage, but they wanted more. This is something I and 160,000 other people where against and signed an online petition to stop this happening. You only have to look at America and the Fox network to know that this isn't the way we want our country to end up. This scandal and its tainting on the reputation of News International, along with widespread anger at this deal, led to Rupert Murdoch pulling out his bid. Huzzah! Come on everyone; let's have a party to celebrate the power of public outcry! Woo hoo!
All in all, these have been the worst two weeks that News Corporation has ever had. They've had their reputation ruined both sides of the Atlantic. I mean, we all know how patriotic the American's are and how protective they are of anything to do with 9/11. If victims’ families have been hacked, the American's will want blood. They have lost their biggest selling newspaper. Murdoch has lost his chances of owning BSkyB anytime soon. Rebekah Brooks has gone. And, now they're being investigated which will undoubtedly end with the Murdoch's paying huge sums in damages to everyone. They may as well just send everyone in Britain a cheque for £500 and be done with it. I hope heads roll for all this, I really do.
The only way it could get worse for the Journalism industry is if it were revealed that it's their fault Princess Diana died in that French tunnel because they were too busy, photographing the scene and trying to grab the headline first, to actually help her… WHAT!?
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