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Crocodile Tears

from The Cracks Start Appearing by Active Minds

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about

I find that the depths to which the tabloid press are prepared to sink to both extraordinary and yet somehow unsurprising at the same time.
The phone-hacking scandal that eventually forced the News Of The World out of circulation (hooray!) finally showed the public the reality of what went on behind the scenes to provide the sort of lurid stories that were its mainstay, and the public were rightly appalled. But that same public had lapped up those same stories in the first place. Up to the time of its demise it was the biggest selling “newspaper” in the country, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it was dominated more by celebrity gossip and scandal than by genuine news.
The over-riding consideration, when looking at whether questionable stories should be appearing in newspapers, is whether or not they are “in the public interest”. That’s what tabloids will say to defend themselves - that they were acting in the public interest. But often they seem to be confusing the “public interest” with things which the public are interested in - such as the private lives of others.
The fact that getting information on people’s private lives clearly involves snooping and spying on them, including actions which are questionable either legally or morally, didn’t seem to occur to or bother many of its readers. It was only when it was revealed that they’d hacked into the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, which had led Milly’s parents to believe that she must have still been alive at that point, that widespread public outrage at those tactics arose. But all of the subsequent investigations have indicated that this was just par for the course for the News Of The World - phone-hacking was such a part of its modus operandi in obtaining exclusive information on its stories that it was not thought of as being in any way unusual.
Of course there have been scapegoats - those who have faced trial and even gone to prison. But let’s not be naive - the people at the top knew what it took to get the sort of juicy gossip that they demanded for their stories, and simply didn’t care that ethical or legal lines would be crossed to meet their demands.

lyrics

Were you shocked to find that journalists hacked the phones of murder victims? Were you shocked to find that journalists made pay-offs to the police? The owners and the editors claim they knew nothing about it, but they would condone any action for an exclusive piece. Murdoch’s apologies shouldn’t fool anyone. We don’t call them the gutter press for nothing. Were you shocked to find that journalists were buying stolen information? Were you shocked to find that journalists felt they were above the law? It isn’t in the public interest just because people want to read it - tabloid clowns don’t understand what press freedom is for.

credits

from The Cracks Start Appearing, released December 19, 2014

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Active Minds Scarborough, UK

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