Hacking trial: periodicalsThe phone-hacking scandal has become the pretext for condemning investigative reporting methods. Anything underhand can now be branded unethical if not illegal, from ‘blagging’ information or paying for it to going through bin bags or making secret recordings. This will spell the end of proper investigative journalism – already an endangered species. Hacked Off will never let go of its bone and will have lots of trial evidence to use as ammunition...Culture Secretary Sajid Javid has implicitly recognised IPSO rather than trying to force through a Royal Charter which virtually no-one in the publishing industry wants. All but 13 members of parliament voted for a Bill to end press freedom. Mercifully, this ‘Royal Charter’ has been ignored, as the press has instead declined to be regulated by politicians and retains its independence as it continues what is, for many, a fight for survival. Editors can not know what all their staff, freelancers, columnists, researchers, stringers, commentators, tweeters etc are doing all the time. You can have codes, guidelines and regulations, but in the end this is about culture. There has been a big change in the culture of Fleet Street. News UK probably has some of the most tightly-regulated journalists in the world. Cash payments for stories are pretty much a thing of the past (requiring sign-off so high in the company that it is made in the US rather than Wapping). |
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The hacking trial
![]() The commentary
None of this money would have been spent if Andy Coulson had not tolerated and encouraged a culture of hacking and then lied through his teeth for five years...but Leveson was not necessary...journalism uncovered the scandal, the courts delivered justice. The law works. - £100m for one? No: £33m for six (so far) The press coverage
Conviction and acquittals, two sides of the same story, but which was the better angle? |
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