 |
| Photo: B.J. West |
In a speech in London recently, Rupert Murdoch – responding to the phone-tapping skullduggery of the News of the World – defended his organisation’s “uniquely vigorous” journalism in the UK.
Anyone who has subbed a UK tabloid journalist’s copy will know that Fleet Street has always operated under slightly different ethical standards (as in none) than the rest of the journalistic world. Quotes are routinely manufactured, stories are beaten up to within an inch of their lives and reporters will misrepresent themselves at the drop of a hat if there’s a sniff of a front page in it.
It seems now, though, that ethics-free journalism is building a beach-head here. Emailing MPs under an assumed names, reporters at the Herald Sun in Melbourne sought to entrap candidates in the Victorian election over campaign donations and mandatory sentencing.
There have been no denials from the Murdoch camp and Crikey’s report on the scandal suggests the attempted entrapment was methodical.
By the way, those outside the industry may be interested to know that there is indeed a formal code of ethics in Australian journalism. This particular writer might be jaded after so many years in the industry, but I would wager that at least 70 per cent of journalists would not know what the code contained and a goodly portion would not even know that it exists.
With respect to the News Ltd hacks’ behaviour, it’s worth pointing to clause 8: “Use fair, responsible and honest means to obtain material. Identify yourself and your employer before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast. Never exploit a person’s vulnerability or ignorance of media practice.”
Oh well.
4 Comments
anything · November 25, 2010 at 11:53 AM
To be fair The Australian did a superb job exposing the shenanigans surrounding the Dr Haneef affair.
But that really shows how dissapointing it is that so many News Ltd titles now concentrate on either the frivilous or muck racking. They really are becoming their own worst enemy.
Mr D · November 25, 2010 at 9:19 PM
Anything, yes the tragedy is that there are some excellent journalists at News Ltd and The Australian has on occasion done some great public interest journalism, like the Haneef investigation.
If they spent more time doing that and less time fighting imagined culture wars and peddling a far right worldview, the paper might be worth buying again.
As for the Herald Sun, no thanks. Iredeemable.
Anonymous · November 25, 2010 at 11:09 PM
The Murdoch tabloids revel in the kind of tactics that were they used by others, such as Police, council inspectors, etc the tabloids would denounce to the high heavens.
For hypocracy it is hard to go past the Telegraphs recent campaign against the “flood of brothels” into Sydney, all the while running several pages of advertisements for those same brothels in the same paper.
MJC
Mr D · November 25, 2010 at 11:37 PM
Yes, where would tabloid media be without manufactured OUTRAGE.