The phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom has galvanised the nation's attention on the need to clean up British journalism in general and of the tabloid variety in particular. The News of The World (NoTW) broke the law by hiring a private investigator to hack phones of not only celebrities, which many may regard as legitimate as celebrities do feed on publicity to market themselves, but also, amongst other incidents, of hacking the voicemail of a murdered teenager Milly Dowler that has raised the collective ire of the entire nation.
The UK has particularly stringent laws on invasion of privacy and the wheels of UK's justice system have begun to churn; once the police has sufficient evidence for the Crown to prosecute it stands to reason that the judiciary would come into play as NoTW violated the law by hacking into phones.
To further complicate matters David Cameron the British Prime Minister's judgment is being called into question with his appointment of Andrew Edward Coulson Director of Communications & Planning for the Conservative Party, editor of the NoTW from 2003 to 2007. Coulson resigned on January 11, 2011 after continued coverage of the phone hacking affair. Taking political mileage from the demise of the NoTW which printed its last edition on Sunday the 10 of July, 2011 the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband has called for Rebekah Brookes, the Chief Executive of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to step down and for the ongoing take over bid by Rupert Murdoch of BSkyB to be delayed pending further investigation.
There is nothing new in the unholy alliance between the government and media barons. The Tories in defence have thrown mud on the former Labour government and accused key members of being guilty of hobnobbing with the media barons. Close relations between Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch have also been doing the rounds on the internet and newspaper articles.
Questions of whether this behaviour is atypical of the British media or limited to Murdoch's empire have been raised. A 2006 Information Commissioner did explain that the use of private investigators was widespread. The solution, the British media is arguing, must be to set up a full judicial inquiry into the phone hacking scandal. Sections of the media notably The Economist argues in an editorial that "it is proven that News Corporation's (Murdock's media empire) managers condoned lawbreaking, they should not be running any newspaper or television firm. They should be in prison."
Pakistanis no doubt would recall that three of our cricket players - Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer - were banned for five years subsequent to the revelations by the News of the World of conspiring to deliberately bowl no-balls as part of a 'spot-fixing' betting scam last year. The end of the NoTW is not likely to lead to the dismissal of charges levelled against our cricketers however illegal the tactics employed by the reporters of the paper. Be that as it may there are several comparisons that maybe drawn from what is taking shape in the UK. Pakistani governments, federal as well as provincial, and members of the opposition have forged strong ties - be they supportive or confrontational - with media barons. Our media too is aggressive and there is ample evidence to suggest that the government/establishment has used strong arm tactics to cow down the media upon occasion - tactics that include stopping advertisement support as well as making journalists disappear. In addition the present government has also used its legitimate right to boycott channels opposed to its policies. However, it is hoped that the government focuses not on hiding news or punishing newsmen/media groups but on managing news better.