Saturday 9 July 2011

Freedom of the Press?

We get the Times so this morning I took time out to read articles from both the Guardian and the Independent because we were clearly not going to get an unbiased opinion on the recent events. My husband said he hoped that Matthew Paris would address the issue and he did. He said it had all been done before and what was all the fuss about (I paraphrase) Maybe I've not been paying sufficient attention but I had actually no real idea that one man had been allowed to get such a hold on the politics of this country.....and all for his own profit motive. No one comes out of this well. Both parties seem to have spent much time and effort going to the parties and courting the favour of the big man.
And Murdoch has got away with it till now. Only the absolute horror of tapping the phones of people suffering their own private tragedies has caught the attention of the media, though to be fair there have been many voices raised on the subject , largely unheeded. To allow Murdoch any more power would be to put the whole country at risk of losing its identity. Do we really wanted to have the BBC tampered with? It might be flawed but its the best we could hope for in any crisis.
We think we have the freedom of the press but what we really seem to have is the freedom of the press to tap phones, hack into accounts and use bully boy tactics if things do not go their way.
Its time to try to get some ethics back into our nation....do as you would be done by would be a good one to start with. Who would want to think someone else had been listening in to their conversations? I certainly felt shocked when it happened to me and I was only discussing mundane matters. Time for a few resignations and a rethink for all the parties with any luck.

2 comments:

Bishop Alan Wilson said...

I have to say, Jean, that Nich davies' work makes it plain that the Daily Mail has been as bad if not worse ethically than News International titles. Fortunately social media seem inherently to be able to get roubd powergamers, as the Arab spring has shown. I hope real good comes out of all this.

Revjeanrolt said...

Me too....I think the public has shown a real distaste for the way the press have behaved.