The case of Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation: All the News That’s Fit to Hack is presented to address the issue of the royal family in England that noticed there was an eavesdropper that listened to the voicemails. The voicemails were played before the right recipient got them, and therefore the communication secretary and private secretary investigated the issue. In 2005, the royal family requested the police to probe the issue, and in 2006, Scotland Tard assured that the News of the world was involved with the hacking of the voicemails of the royal family. The main culprits were Clive Goodman, a reporter and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator. However, the Queen and Prince Charles rarely used their phones, and therefore, the hacking was on other family members. Since the issue affected the royal family, the police took an interest in investigating it, but the cases of the commoner getting hacked were not investigated.
Therefore, Scotland Yard was accused of not following leads that would help speed up the investigations. However, Scotland took up more important investigations and did not release names of non-royals whose phones had been hacked. The plaintiffs reported Scotland Yard, and the investigations limited Scotland Yard’s activities. The Murdoch Empire owned the News of the World, The Sun, The Times of London, The Sunday Times, and Fox Broadcasting. With the resources. Murdoch uses the resources to spread the pro-conservative and business opinions. The entities were used by vying candidates such as Margaret Thatcher, which influenced the winning chances of the candidates. Murdoch’s influence increased after Charlotte’s testimony on the ethical standards of the media stations.
Questions For Thought
- Rupert Murdoch did likely lose sight of the operations at News of the World because of the growth of the empire. In 1969, the media stations had a high impact on the community and received good testimonials from the citizens such as Charlotte, who praised the media station for its ethics. However, the ethics standards changed, the media station hacked into people’s voicemails, and those without any influence in the community would not have their cases investigated (Fowler, 2021). The media stations faced allegations from other people about the hacking of the telephones. However, due to the intensity of the allegations, Murdoch made payments to the complainants. In 2009, James Murdoch paid $1.1 million to solve the case of phone hacking of the head of the Professional Footballers’ Soccer Association, Gordon Taylor.
- Phone hacking is not advisable since it involves an invasion of privacy. However, there are cases of phone hacking that are for the greater good of one of the parties. Phone hacking helps to provide solutions such as murders, theft and other illegal activities. The hacking seeks to get access to confidential information. In this case, the phones of the royal families were hacked to get access to confidential information involving the royal family. There have been rising phone-hacking cases that lead to the victims suing the media stations for violating the freedom of privacy (Fowler, 2021). However, not all the plaintiffs are listened to. Some of the cases are not investigated whole those of people with influence are followed up, for example, the royal family.
- The practices such as phone hacking are frequently used in the media industry to access confidential information on the stories the media stations investigate. Although this is an unethical practice in the industry, it helps solve murder mysteries, corruption and theft cases in the community (Jorgensen, 2022). The media stations help solve these mysteries by providing evidence of the cases that are being investigated by the police. However, the media stations should seek a license to ensure that the procedure follows ethical procedures.
References
Fowler, A. (2021). Publish and be damned?: Mainstream media and the challenge of whistleblowing sites. Handbook of Global Media Ethics, 877-897. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32103-5_44
Jorgensen, N. (2022). Contentious expertise: Hacking mobile phones, changing mobile technology. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v27i3.11512
