Reaping the Whirlwind

There is a shadow over Europe.


No, it's not the Nazi's, not even in zombie form. It's the phone hacking scandal, a truely epic nightmare reserved just for the upper echelons of society that just seems to get worse every day. Like a daemonic Duracell bunny, it just keeps going and going and going, claiming an endless stream of victims. The net result is some sort of obsence free for all, which involves all the guilty parties kicking lumps off each other like a Halifax street brawl. Papers admit bribing cops and hacking phones, politicians condemn everyone except themselves, everyone bundles in on the politicians for being spineless cads who crawled through the dirt for media favour, and a throughly embarrassed Met police - already fresh from a multitude of recent beatings - responds by arresting just about anyone who ever owned a telephone. For the main players - at least from News International's side of the fence, check out this Rogue's Gallery: Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, Les Hinton and Rupert Murdoch.

 

The Corporation will now lead us in prayer.

To say that I don't know many people who have been particularly over-interested in what our not-so-benevolent dictators have been up to, the fallout has been immense. Resignations, the collapse of News of the World, the decapitation of News International, printed apologies, and withdrawing the BSkyB bit just to name a few. And it doesn't seem to get any better. David Cameron flounders as new revelations, literally every hour, engross him in the scandal by his association with 'friend' Coulson. The Met Police just seem to be completely lost, going as far as to describe their previous investigation as 'crap', and now floundering in a mess very much of their own making. Two hundred journalists at News of the World were shamelessly sacrificed for Brooks' continued career, which has come to a crashing end.


As soon as the FBI got involved, you knew the story was starting to get a bit silly. It has become a self-perpetuating - possibily even self-aware - monster that grows in size with each passing moment. The funny thing is, public outrage has been described, although this intrepid young blogger hasn't so much as overheard it in a pub. And call me cynical, but aren't we all a bit jaded with it by now. Reporters bribing cops and doing seedy things? No, really? Cops selling phone numbers and opening doors for people? Surely not. Politicians pandering to media moguls, involving themselves in every public outrage because there's a general feeling that just to be seen is a good thing? No one could be so shameless.

Anyway, not a particularly funny one today. I've been at a bit of a loss, and not having the internet hasn't helped a great deal. For those of you actually interested in phone hacking, Newsweeks article is very good. It is so good, in fact, I'll sum up by lifting a quote directly from it.

As one of his former top executives—once a close aide—told me, “This scandal and all its implications could not have happened anywhere else. Only in Murdoch’s orbit. The hacking at News of the World was done on an industrial scale. More than anyone, Murdoch invented and established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means.”

“In the end, what you sow is what you reap,” said this same executive. “Now Murdoch is a victim of the culture that he created. It is a logical conclusion, and it is his people at the top who encouraged lawbreaking and hacking phones and condoned it.”