Britain's mega media scandal has again brought under spotlight the question whether the country now needs a law of privacy. It has also raised the question whether or not the judges be allowed to stop the British public from reading about a footballer's adultery or enjoying pictures of a film star's wedding. And aren't the people entitled to walk down the street without having their most intimate activities recorded on security cameras and broadcast to the world?
These and many other such questions were first famously raised by Joshua Rozenberg in his Privacy and the Press in which he painstakingly sought the answers of questions such as `Where should the balance be struck between confidentiality and free speech, privacy and the Press?' and `Should the newspapers be able to reveal the identities of killers and sex offenders?'
Although, there appears to be a divided opinion over whether the country would be witnessing the introduction of a statutory regime which may somehow reduce the flavour of a crucial ingredient from the staple of the newspaper-savvy nation, there's a strong possibility that the British print media will now be required to critically examine and revisit its practices and traditions in relation to investigative journalism. It is also expected that the situation will lead to a further erosion of print media readership base for the greater benefit of an unregulated internet media.
"This [Britain] is not Italy; this is not certainly a banana republic," says a visibly upset Lionel Barber, the editor of The Financial Times, at a TV program, Charlie Rose Show, in response to a question about the headline of a Reuters analysis "Is Britain more corrupt than it thinks?" That analysis discusses the telephone hacking scandal that has badly jolted Rupert Murdoch's empire in the UK in particular and the US and elsewhere in general and posed a serious challenge to Prime Minister David Cameron's stay at 10 Downing Street.
Although, Barber's approach to `Voicemailgate' looks quite correct and understandable when he as an editor of a highly prestigious newspaper sounds a note of caution by saying that "we need to be careful before moving too far in that direction", Reuters analysis does point out that "Britons love to lecture the world about integrity and the rule of law, but the News of the World phone hacking scandal has laid bare a web of collusion between money, power, media and the police".
The Financial Times editor, who gives seven out of 10 marks to David Cameron on his performance in the House of Commons where he had been left in the dust by Labour leader Ed Miliband, has a highly informative and instructive perspective on the scandal. According to him, what the world in general and Britain in particular have seen is "an entangling of media and politicians and police-a kind of quasi new establishment with roles not being clearly enough defined".
Through his second point that he makes, he emphasizes the fact that Britain has a very vibrant competitive press and that this story was not exposed by police inquiry, not by parliamentary committee, but by a leading British newspaper The Guardian helped a little by The New York Times, which crucially broke the story that knocked out News International's defence that merely a lone actor was responsible for phone hacking.
"So I think that testifies to the vibrancy of the body politic. What we now have to do is take a very hard look on our system of regulations in the newspaper, press and media industry; and there will be necessary changes. I hope very much that we will not, however, adopt statutory legislation," Barber argues.
Answering a question about the argument that it was the very competition that led to phone hacking, the FT editor says that he's editor of Financial Times and that his newspaper is a competitor of the News International and the Wall Street Journal.
"We apply the highest standards of ethics when we are pursuing our stories. And while we welcome competition there are clear limits to what is acceptable. And I think some of those limits are going to be clearly defined as a result of a judge-led inquiry...and that would be a very healthy moment for the media of this country," according to him.
It is, however, imperative to anticipate, albeit holistically, some possible consequences of the mega media scandal. The first casualty in the wake of Murdoch's exit from Britain's print media, which appears to be a strong likelihood, if the two Murdochs' appearance before the Commons Select Committee is any guide, will be The Times, the late 18th century highly respected newspaper.
(To be continued.)