Jump cutA B C D E F G H I L M N O P R S T U VXYZWJfor supplying information on people in the news- proved a compelling sub-plot.
8 July 2011 was a fi eld-day for newspaper head-
lines: ‘Hacked To Death’ (Th e Times), ‘Paper Th at
Died of Shame’ (Daily Mail), ‘Shut In Shame’
(Daily Express), ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ (Daily
Telegraph) and ‘World’s End’ (Sun).
Of public concern is the extent of phone-
hacking, for there is widespread belief that NoW
cannot be the only media outlet guilty of using
information illegally obtained by electronic
means. Further, criticism was addressed at the
apparent ineffectualness of the newspaper-
industry-funded press complaints commis-
sion (UK), which Ed Miliband, leader of the
Labour opposition, described as a ‘toothless
poodle’. In the light of phone-hacking revelations,
Prime Minister David Cameron announced the
establishment of a public inquiry chaired by
Lord Justice Leveson into lawbreaking by the
press, the system of independent regulation and
the issue of cross-media ownership.
Journalism: ‘postmodern journalism’ A
broad and overarching term to describe a trend
in journalism away from serious reporting; in
particular emphasizing the personal over the
political. It can be summed up as more tabloid,
more consumerist, and focuses on disconti-
nuities, celebrating diff erence over commonality
and stressing the confessional over the reporto-
rial.
‘Th is confessional and therapy style of news,’
write Deborah Chambers, Linda Steiner and
Carole Fleming in Women and Journalism (Rout-
ledge, 2004), ‘is characterized by a profoundly
selective tolerance of some people’s failings and
misfortunes. It usually taps into sympathy for
victims drawn largely from white, middle-class,
heterosexual social groups of the same national-
ity as the national or regional newspapers and
broadcast programmes. It ignores the misery
and distress of migrants and refugees, drug
addicts or prostitutes and of millions of people
in developing nations suff ering from starvation
and war.’
Postmodern journalism works towards the
decontextualization of events, and by skirting
issues of power, it takes politics out of everyday
life. In the words of Chambers et al, it ‘system-
atically devalues issues concerning economic,
social and cultural power and techniques of criti-
cal engagement and investigation’. Ultimately,
what happens in this postmodernist scenario is
the conversion of news into entertainment. See
postmodernism.
Jump cut Where two scenes in a TV news
Journalism: phone-hacking Th e pressure on
journalists to ‘bring home the bacon’, to produce
news stories, particularly about royalty and
celebrities, can lead to practices which break the
law. With the advance of e-mailing and the use of
mobile phones, the risk to personal privacy from
prying reporters has greatly increased. Obviously
phone-hacking is a secret activity and victims are
seldom aware that their passwords, their e-mail
address books and their online messaging are
being probed, tracked and potentially converted
into hard copy and possible headlines.
In the UK the most notorious case of phone-
hacking has involved the News of the World, a
Sunday paper in the Rupert Murdoch news
corp stable. A private investigator working for
NoW, Glenn Mulcaire, hacked into the mobile
phones of members of the royal household at the
behest of the paper’s royal editor, Clive Good-
man. Both were jailed in January 2007.
NoW’s defence was that this was a one-off
case, while the editor of the paper at the time,
Andy Coulson (later to be appointed Director
of Communications to the new Prime Minister
David Cameron), declared that he had not been
party to the hacking or known about it. Follow-
ing the suspension of Ian Edmondson, NoW’s
assistant editor (news), the pressure on Coulson
increased. He resigned from his government
post in January 2011 as court cases began to line
up from a range of celebrities, including John
Prescott, former deputy prime minister, football
analyst Andy Gray, comedian Steve Coogan
and actress Sienna Miller, alleging breaches of
privacy.
Revelations that News Corp had paid hefty
sums in out-of-court settlements to Gordon
Taylor, Chief Executive of the Professional
Footballers’ Association, and PR agent Max
Cliff ord challenged NoW’s case that the hack-
ing was simply the work of a ‘rogue reporter’.
Persistent enquiries and further revelations by
the Guardian newspaper proved that hacking
was common practice for NoW, and soon both
paper and corporate owner, News Corp, were
engulfed in a scandal that led to the dramatic
closure of the paper on 7 July 2011. Th e fi nal
edition of the 168-year-old paper appeared on
Sunday 10 July.
Th e hacking story emerged as far back as 2003,
but other than the Guardian (and the New York
Times) the media showed little interest until it
became clear that the paper’s law-breaking prac-
tices were systemic and were intrusive beyond
the limits of royalty and celebrity. Evidence of
police collusion – payment of police personnel