power without responsibility (jn 500) journalism, democracy and power case studies : phone hacking...

Power Without Responsibility (JN 500)

Journalism, Democracy and PowerCase StudIes : Phone Hacking and ‘The

News of the World’/Sunday Times Thalidomide campaign

Lecture Outline

1. Journalism, Democracy and Power

2. The Public Sphere

3. Defining the Fourth Estate

4. The Contemporary Fourth Estate – evaluations

5. Investigative Journalism

6. Case Studis: Phone Hacking and the News of the World/Sunday Times Thalidomide campaign


The execution of the sovereign king meant authority had been diffused throughout the social body and sovereignty had been relocated to the people.

Liberty and equality - a ‘logic of equivalence’ - was unleashed through the democratic revolution.


Journalism enabled the spread of revolutionary ideas and the formation of a collective political consciousness.

Democracy is informed by its communicative capacities – types of media and kinds of political and public texts and talk.


Democracy - ‘rule by the people’.

Democracy as a particular political system and form of government.

Democratic principles also inform public life more broadly – institutions, workplaces, schools, etc.

Democratic principles include:• Equal right to express opinion• Opinion evaluated on the basis

of merit• Majority decision making.


Forms of Power:Economic power: commercial enterprisesPolitical power: statesCoercive power: military, policeSymbolic power: means of information and

communication employed by cultural institutions.


Power works at different communicative ‘levels’, not just structurally, institutionally, but also through interpersonal communication.

Power is not just a negative phenomenon that is imposed oppressively but a relational, ‘enabling’ phenomenon.

Power is inextricably linked to knowledge.


Democratic ‘freedoms’ should not be contrasted against the exercise of ‘power’.

Democracy is a form of governance.


From mid-17th to early 18th C the public sphere arose as realm between the state and civil society where private individuals gathered to debate the regulation of civil society and the conduct of the state. The public sphere was a bourgeois public sphere.

The public sphere portrayed as “a neutral arena where information about ‘the public good’ is available, regardless of the individual rank and free from the domination of the state” (Craig 2004: p. 51).


Public sphere occurred in new spaces/institutions – coffee houses, salons, reading clubs, libraries, etc. – and facilitated by relatively free press.

Growth of free press facilitated by elimination of censorship with repeal of system of licensing in 1695.

First daily newspaper the Daily Courant started in 1702 and Habermas notes that with the publication of the Craftsman in 1726 that “the press was for the first time established as a genuinely critical organ of a public engaged in critical political debate…” (Habermas, 1989: p.60).


Approximately 3,000 coffee houses in London from 1680 to 1730. Conversations were linked to periodicals such as the Spectator and the Tatler.

The public sphere “designates a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk. It is the space in which citizens deliberate about their common affairs” (Fraser 1990: p. 57).


Term coined by Edmund Burke and applied to press gallery in late 18th C – noted by Thomas Carlyle. First three estates: Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal, and Commons.

Key assumptions that underpin idea of Fourth Estate:

“… the need to diffuse the power of governance (achievable by separating institutions), the need to constrain the power of government, and the need to preserve the liberty of the individual, particularly the individual’s ability to utter speech freely. No less important is the strong democratic notion about the need for a well-informed citizenry capable of making rational choices on the basis of a fulsome disclosure of information” (Economou & Tanner 2008, p. 8).


Based on two rival and overlapping models: ‘Educational’: press serves as agency of public

discussion – c.f. public sphere ‘Representative’: press reflects readers’ interests

and acts as an advocate for them, watchdog role (Hampton 2010, pp. 3-5).

Both emphasise link between a representative government and its constituents.


Fourth Estate idea informs ‘social responsibility’ of journalism, journalistic ethics and professional values: Fairness and balance ‘Objective’, factual reporting Full disclosure of information on issue and any conflict of

interest Independent and close scrutiny of sources of political,

economic and social power Source of information for audiences and political affairs Diversity of opinions expressed Forum for discussion of public issues Vehicle for expressing the people’s voice to political

leaders.


Contemporary fourth estate function undermined by: Commercialisation

pressures Close relationship with

the State.


Commercialisation:Technology/economic factors limit new voices and

increase concentration of ownershipNews media involvement in larger corporate

conglomerates ‘Dumbing down’ of newsDrive for profits leads to cost-cutting, less staff and

increased workloads.


Journalism and the State:

National security and Defence (e.g. Iraq war) D Notice Cmtee.

Victim of increasingly sophisticated government communication processes

Journalists as part of a ‘political elite’

Reinforces institutional (e.g. monarchy) and ideological (e.g. capitalist economics) perspectives.


Ideals of Fourth Estate captured in practice of investigative journalism: : acting as a watchdog, holding those in positions of authority to account by exposing wrongdoing, standing up for the public interest and, where appropriate, campaigning for reform.


Washington Post’s Woodward and Bernstein assigned to cover a routine burglary uncover a major political scandal – Watergate. It brought down a President and sent to prison his men who were implicated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYiE_D6G_eI





Investigative journalism now under threat from economic pressures.

Yet we have seen the rise of blogging, WikiLeaks, Snowden,whistleblowing, data journalism, etc.

Investigative Journalism;Dead or Alive Edited by John Mair and Richard Keeble.Abramis 2011

http://www.thecitizen.org.au/media/hold-front-page-despite-money-woes-news-outlets-doing-more-investigative-journalism-not-less
















Lords Select Committee – The Future of Investigative Journalism:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/communications-committee/inquiries/the-future-of-investigative-journalism/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101808/Investigative-journalist-vital-role-say-Lords-newspapers-face-triple-whammy-threats-future.html









Modern Investigative Journalism

By and large confined to Television in the UK

By and large confined to the BBC and Channel Four

Panorama and Dispatches lead the way

Investigative journalism is dangerous

It can be very expensive if you get it wrong

It can be very expensive if produces nothing

Modern investigative journalism 2

Many stories come from a journalistic hunch

Following that up can though lead to obsession

The trick is to know when to give up

The best investigative journalists are determined;sometimes they are not very nice people

They use any resources available to them;personal contacts,desk research,whistleblowers

Modern Investigative Journalism 3

Some of the information comes wholesale such as from Wikileaks/?Assange And snowden/NSA

The journalism then consists of sorting wheat from chaff,stories from non stories and ethical questions such as redacting names to protect people

Wikileaks a classic example of this.Journalists from the Guardian and at least two other papers holed up for weeks in advance of publication

Assange became just the messenger and an unhappy one at that


With Snowden the volume of information was even bigger.More journalists,more newspapers involved

The Impact came not just from the impact but also simultaneous publication in several countries.

The leak and leaker are still very important on the retail level

Much of the FIFA expose has been the work of one dogged journalist Andrew Jennings and sources within one company ISL


The other superb modern investigation was that of Mp’s expenses by the Daily Telegraph in 2003

A dogged journalist behind that too.Heather Brooke who kept putting in Freedom of Information requests to the Parliamentary authorities.

Much filibustering.Almost always refused or is

6a.Case Study Phone Hacking and the News of the World

The biggest crisis to face the tabloid press for the last

thirty years

Led to closure of the News of the World in 2011

Led to the Leveson Inquiry into ‘ethics and practices’ of the Press in 2011/2102

Led to trials of journalists,editors and senior executives

Some were convicted ,some were acquited

6a Case Study .Phone Hacking and the News of the World

Phone hacking on an industrial scale at the NOTW.Greg Mulcaire paid in excess of £100,000 per year to do it.

First came to light with 2007 conviction of the Royal Editor Clive Goodman ‘a rogue reporter’ said NOTW

Nick Davies of the Guardian referred to the ‘black arts’ in his ‘Flat Earth News’ 2008

Series of revelations in the Guardian from 2009-2011

Guardian editor/Davies told ‘no story’ by Met Police

Davies carried on digging

6a Case Study;Phone Hacking and the News of the World

Andy Coulson(former NOTW editor) became Press Secretary to David Cameron in Opposition and when he became PM in May 2010

Davies dug and dug

July 2011 ‘The Milly Dowler moment’ .Revealed that NOTW had hacked missing/later dead girl’s phone.Sent reporters to ‘find her working in Telford.Wrong

Guardian got it wrong on one detail-did not empty the phone and hinder the search

Lord Justice Leveson had a field day

6b. Case Study: Sunday Times Thalidomide campaign

Thalidomide was created by German company Grünenthal and used in the late 1950s and early 1960 as a drug to treat morning sickness, headaches, coughs, insomnia and colds.

In 1961 an Australian doctor, William McBride, noticed an increase in deformed babies born at his hospital – all to mothers who had taken thalidomide.

The drug was withdrawn from the market later that year but it was estimated that 10,000 babies were born around the world with defects caused by thalidomide (The Guardian).


In May 1968 The Sunday Times published an investigative report into Thalidomide.The Story ‘walked in’ to the paper.

In 1972 The Sunday Times published a front page lead under the banner Our Thalidomide Children, A Cause for National Shame.

The UK distributor of the drug, Distillers, had offered the victims total compensation of £3.25m.

The Sunday Times campaign helped prompt Commons action and a shareholder revolt at Distillers.

A new compensation deal worth £32.5m was eventually agreed.

After fighting an injunction all the way to European Court, The Sunday Times also revealed in 1976 that the drug’s developers had not met the basic testing requirements of the time before distributing it. (Wilson 2012)


http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/sep/01/thalidomide-cover-up?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/sep/01/harold-evans-attacks-thalidomide-manufacturer

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8502005/bitter-pill















References

Craig, G 2004, The Media, Politics and Public Life. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.

Habermas, J 1989, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Trans. T. Burger with F. Lawrence. Cambridge: Polity.

Mair J and Keeble R (eds) Investigative Journalism;Dead or Alive.Abramis 2011

Mair J and Keeble R (eds) The Phone Hacking Scandal.Two editions.Abramis 2012

Mair J(ed) After Leveson? Abramis 2013

Hampton, M 2010, ‘The Fourth Estate

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