Any references, similarities and/or comparisons to the local scene might be purely coincidental, particularly since we do not have moguls of the ilk of Rupert Murdoch. And, yet, there are some striking features in the compulsive book Dial M For Murdoch by Labour MP Tom Watson and former UK Journalist of the Year Martin Hickman that tend to strike a chord and warrant further scrutiny.
… a shadowy network… is spreading its wings around many a corner of the world, Europe included- Leo Brincat
Rightly or wrongly, people close to Mr Murdoch’s newspapers have been accused of hacking phones, blagging information and casually destroying peoples’ lives for years.
In this book, we learn how the powers that be in this saga “put the problem in a box” through unstinting efforts to maintain and extend the media empire’s power, aided and abetted by their political and police friends.
Recently, there were also reports that people closely connected to the said empire tried to rubbish the private lives of the Parliamentary Select Committee members that happened to be scrutinising the alleged abuses. This was done through an attempted but well thought out and concerted media character assassination plan that targeted the ones that could prove to be the toughest nut to crack on the said committee.
Regardless of how they were perceived by independent observers, certain paid hacks did not care two hoots about the notion that gutter journalism had sunk into the sewer.
We come across a particular instance where the politician who co-authored this book was told by a tabloid’s political editor that “my editor will pursue you for the rest of your life” and that simply because he had taken the lid off certain hot issues.
The mogul is reported to have generally preferred to appoint journalists whose outlook had been shaped by his business (and interests plus agenda) and who would forever be grateful to him, the Sun King.
The strategy was crystal clear.
Strategy 1 would be to portray those targeted as “rats”.
Strategy 2, justify their image as being “rats” by claiming that if you are pursuing rats, you sometimes have to go into the sewer.
Collusion with key police officers and security services agents was so strong that when some retired from service they were even offered handsomely paid retainers by certain “independent” media controlled by the Sun King after having actually bribed some of them while still on active duty.
The blagging used has nothing to do with blogging.
It was all about using confidential records as an instrument to destroy people’s lives and characters.
In some instances, it also entailed paying corrupt police officers, tax or other officials for access to private data.
As the authors rightly point out “in the analogue age, reporters traced individuals by flicking through phone books, checking the electoral roll and companies’ house register and calling friends, neighbours and colleagues.
“By the late 1990s, many were relying on private investigators who could instantly and illegally access the growing volume of information stored on computer databases.
“Private detectives knew people inside the police, vehicle and tax offices and blaggers who could extract health records from GP’s receptionist and hospital IT systems as well as phone numbers from phone companies. Even when sometimes unlisted.”
These are all signs to the outside world of the existence of a shadowy network that is spreading its wings around many a corner of the world, Europe included.
Progressively, the trade in illegal newsgathering techniques continued to flourish.
Under the dynamic regime of one of the media empire’s stalwarts, an identified but unnamed person turned to a trick to unearth stories without leaving his home or his office: through phone hacking.
All this led to a parliamentary commissioned report called What Price Privacy? The Unlawful Trade In Confidential Personal Information.
There are countries where such info is not even part of a trade but simply on offer as part of a personal demolition campaign to meet political ends.
As time went by, certain parties decided that it made more sense to cultivate political reporters rather than their proprietors.
Key politicians are known to have also used some of these influential hired guns to take the sting out of certain highly controversial stories that focused on their direct involvement.
When certain complaints had actually landed on the desk of the Press Complaints Commission and the Commons Culture Committee, although this had, in one instance, led to a journalist and a private detective being jailed, there was a sad twist to the saga. Although their crimes had exposed the ease with which the security of mobile phones could be breached, despite a substantial body of evidence, the police had not followed up many leads, the watchdog had been asleep and the media industry had refrained from embarking on a period of soul-searching.
But the ultimate and worst aspect of this saga was when it became patently obvious that the main target was the intimidation of Parliament itself as an institution, whereby a particular legal firm even threatened victims’ lawyers with an injunction if they represented any more phone hacking victims on grounds that they were privy to sensitive information from earlier cases.
Rebecca Brooks was always reported to be the key figure in this saga. What the book interestingly reveals is that when the Select Committee’s members initially decided not to summon her, a gay member of the said committee claimed that the members had been warned that if they had called her, their private lives would be raked over.
What followed is by now common knowledge.
Brincat.leo@gmail.com
www.leobrincat.com
The author is opposition spokesman for the environment, sustainable development and climate change.