The Leveson Inquiry

This has easily been the biggest news in media for the last few months. And it's understandable why. This inquiry began on the 13th July 2011 to investigate the role of the press and police in the phone-hacking scandal.

What? You've never heard of the phone-hacking scandal? Where were you?

Basically, last year the News of the World were caught tapping into people's answering machines (breaching the Human Rights Act and the PCC's guidelines) and obviously using the information they gained to get information that otherwise would not be available to the public. From as early as 2005 it was discovered that the News of the World were hacking the phones of celebrities, politicians and the Royal Family, and these investigations concluded in 2007. However, in July 2011, it was discovered that the News of the World had unlawfully accessed the phones of relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the 7/7 London bombings.

This soon led to the complete liquidation of the News of the World on the 10th of July, only days after investigations discovered this latest scandal. Many of the major advertisers that used the News of the World for advertisement, boycotted the paper, and on the 7th of July 2011, James Murdoch (the chairman of News Corporation) announced the closure of the News of the World.

Since then, the Leveson Inquiry has unveiled further and further scandals, but it seems like we all now know exactly whose phones were hacked and it's unlikely that News International (the parent of News of the World) have anything else to hide, especially since the FBI on their backs now.

In any case, the Leveson Inquiry is being used to determine the future of press regulation, which relates back to my previous post about media regulation. This could change the face of the press, giving it less freedom than it once had. However, it's not exactly like the press had the freedom to hack phones in the first place, which is exactly why this Inquiry is taking place.

Phone hacking is obviously a serious offense, and gives us a good understand of exactly how petty reporters can be just to sell a few papers. Yes, it is a good idea to delve deeper than the average person to obtain the information that the public need, but it depends on what that need is. For example, hacking the private phones of celebrities and families of the victims of the London bombings obtains no useful information at all. Literally no one on Earth should care about what Wayne Rooney got up to last week behind the bike shed with 55 year old Shirley, nor how much she cost. The public especially don't need a look-in on the pain that the families of attack victims go through, especially since most of those messages are probably condolences.

What needs to happen is the re-definition of the idea of "public interest". It is part of the PCC's guidelines, and newspapers do generally follow it. However, a paper like News of the World, should surely comment on ... oh let's call it News shall we? Events that affect us. Those are the things that we need to know about. Of course it is down to the public as well to try and redefine what the press conceives as public interest, because let's face it, most of us follow celebrities using their Twitter feeds now (I say 'us', but that definitely doesn't include me). I'll tell you what public interest is. The current situation of the government, the war in the Middle East, etc. The press shouldn't care about people, unless those people directly affect us. I genuinely don't think that the mishaps of John Terry are going to make me miss my lecture tomorrow morning. And if they do, then I will forgive the press.

However, until that time, shit needs sorting out.

Pete out.