Britain’s “hackgate” is getting murkier by the day. It is no longer about revelations that phones and voice mails were hacked illegally by reporters of the now-defunct News of the World tabloid with the help of private detectives. The focus has now shifted to the coverup and the involvement, or at least knowledge, of the senior management. Allegations are being made that James Murdoch, who runs the Murdoch empire in Britain, deliberately misled MPs about what he knew, and when, about the phone-hacking scandal. His claims are being challenged by former NoTW news executives, and the inference is that people at the very top were aware that such nefarious practices were going on. Even Rebekah Brooks, a former NoTW editor, had earlier indicted she was unaware her journalists were indulging in sharp practice, but this fiction was soon demolished. The attempt by the Murdochs, father and son, to distance themselves and to put the onus on rogue elements “whom we trusted” is clearly not going down too well with those who have had to pay the price.
Demands have already been made for greater regulation of the media. Britain has some of the toughest media laws in the world, and its courts have lately been granting special injunctions to celebrities and politicians who wanted to quash news reports about their shenanigans, chiefly of a sexual kind. Footballers and actors demanded, and got, “gag” orders to stop their names or pictures being published. Such injunctions were seen having a chilling effect on investigative stories. Will the hacking scandal too create the conditions for more tightening of laws? If so, that would be a pity. Tabloid-style journalism may be intrusive — and certainly hacking into the voicemail of kidnap victims and British soldiers was seriously unethical — but often tabloids (and other investigative journalists) serve a critical function in a democracy. Many revelations about politicians in the UK (and elsewhere) would not have been made public if not for dogged investigative work by the media. In India, too, the Right to Information Act has emerged as a formidable tool to get classified information about institutions and powerful individuals, though the government has spared no effort to keep many out of the RTI’s ambit. Even now, getting information is not at all an easy job. These victories have been hard won, but there is still a long way to go.
But while the media’s efforts everywhere must be lauded, what the News of the World scandal has revealed is how the media and the political elite, instead of keeping their distance, have been cosying up to each other. Journalists and politicians are not supposed to be friends; it is the former’s job to keep an eagle eye on the latter. The media is, after all, the fourth estate of democracy — critical to upholding and buttressing citizens’ freedoms. It cannot perform this mission if it gets too close to those it is supposed to monitor. There is thus a clear conflict of interest in too much proximity.
The NoTW scandal has shed light on the close relationship that top media executives like Ms Brooks had with powerful politicians, including the Prime Minister. Rupert Murdoch’s propensity to meddle in British politics is too well known: thus no politician wanted to be on his wrong side. This incestuous circle is now coming apart. In India, too, there have been a series of revelations about the nexus between politicians, businessmen and the media. This undermines the media’s role as a detached observer, whose only constituency ought to be society at large and whose only guiding principle should be the public interest. Aberrations such as “hackgate” should not distract the media from that basic tenet.