British parliamentary hearings over alleged phone hacking by the now defunct News of the World - a tabloid published by News International, which is run by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation - are getting off to a grim start this week following the mysterious death of the case's primary whistleblower.
Former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare, who had accused the paper's executives of voicemail interception and other unsavory news gathering practices, was found dead in London on Monday. The journalist died just days after he had brought fresh accusations against the News of the World board, claiming they had made him coerce confessions from celebrities by persuading them to take drugs during interviews.
The phone hacking scandal, with all its sensational twists, sheds new light on the role that tabloids play in the modern world, calling into question the legitimacy of their claim to the freedom of the press.
"It would never happen in America"
The Washington Post has claimed that the phone tapping scandal surrounding Murdoch's News of the World is a purely British phenomenon.
Tabloids do exist in New York and elsewhere in the United States, but their circulation is limited, and, unlike their British counterparts, they do not take such a laissez faire approach to sensationalism, the paper argued.
According to The Washington Post, the difference between tabloid culture in Britain and the U.S. is very much a matter of mentality. Animosity towards the powers that be is not part of the American mindset, whereas Brits are largely anti-government and many of them see the tabloid media as a counterweight to the political establishment.
It is no secret that America and Europe do not always see eye to eye. For one thing, the U.S.-led military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan sparked much more public opposition on this side of the Atlantic, including calls for an earlier withdrawal.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's whistle-blowing campaign has also highlighted the transatlantic rift. Many Europeans hailed his exposure of U.S. State Department cables, while in the United States, Mr Assange has been widely condemned as a criminal deserving severe punishment. Incidentally, court hearings on his extradition case are currently underway in London.
Is it all Murdoch's fault?
On both sides of the Atlantic, Murdoch is widely blamed for the News of the World scandal, although there is no evidence to prove that the media mogul knew about the hacking or any other unethical methods practised by the tabloid in order to obtain its exclusives.
Still, the scandal may seriously undermine the 80-year-old Australian native's political clout in the United States. Many say that it was largely thanks to Murdoch's backing that Rudolf Giuliani was elected mayor of New York City and George Pataki became governor of the state of New York in 1995. As rumor has it, even top U.S. government officials, such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are wary of the international media baron.
With that in mind, the outcome of British and U.S. inquiries into the News of the World case seems fairly predictable. The blame will likely be brought to Murdoch's door, forcing his massive media conglomerate to be divided into smaller parts in order to become more manageable. More rigorous legislation may then be adopted against such unethical journalistic methods.
Anti-elitism and freedom of speech
As for Assange, a psychiatric analysis has revealed that, being a typical middle-class Westerner, he has an inherent sense of hatred toward elites, political or otherwise, and is keen to expose their secret dealings.
In Alex Massie's article, "Conrad on Rupert: 'A Great Bad Man,'" Assange is described as "an assassin of the dignity of others and of respected institutions, all in the guise of anti-elitism."
In the Enlightenment era, however, freedom of the press was a purely elitist idea. In those days, print media served as a tool with which the informed and enlightened could edify their less educated fellow citizens while guiding popular ideology.
One other original function of the media was to keep the government under public control. Indeed, the media's independence is crucial to its reliability in the public eye, and, in that sense, it could be considered a separate branch of government.
As for tabloids, they emerged as a product of mass culture when media executives saw that millions of people prefer gossip to information and celebrity scoops to politics. Murdoch and his associates simply responded to public demand by cooking up all kinds of gossip and cultivating popular anti-elitist sentiment. But why should they get away with it? And why should the tabloids enjoy the freedom of the press if they do not perform its essential functions?
It would be silly to expect British parliamentary investigators to return to the code of Enlightenment ethics. But they may - just may - get tabloid executives in the UK and elsewhere to work more responsibly.
The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
