The exploration of a true liberation, freedom, an authentic liberty, never comes easy. Its confirmation comes through the passionate quest for truth and a wise response to issues for individuals and society.
We know an unfree press when an unfree press exploits the vulnerable, shows contempt for the law, engages in collusion with corrupt power and prioritizes obsession with profit, no matter what the cost to citizens.
We have been witnessing here in Britain in the past 12 days a depth of political and public outrage that has shaken the media down to its core, especially Rupert Murdoch and his despotic media empire. After the scandal of politicians expenses and bankers’ greed, ethics once again stands at the top of the political agenda. It’s about time.
The spark for this firestorm began when The Guardian newspaper alleged earlier this month that the News of the World sanctioned the hacking of the mobile phone of missing Milly Dowler, a 13 year old, and her parents after her disappearance in 2002, and that some of Milly’s messages were deleted by the reporter to make space for more messages to be left. If true, this hampered police enquiries and raised hopes and despair for Milly’s parents. Police later found the 13 year old murdered. We are told that News of the World also may have hacked into the phones of the parents of two other schoolgirls who were murdered.
It is alleged that News of the World investigators hacked into the phone numbers of families who lost loved ones in the suicide attack in London in July, 2007 It is also alleged the News of the World hacked into the phone numbers of families whose sons and daughters had died in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police found a News of the World investigator with 4332 names or partial names on his records.
Parents endure heartbreaking anguish when their children go missing, are murdered or die in war. Certain sections of the media showed total callous disregard for the feelings of these families and numerous others, as well as using every means possible to titillate readers and sell more newspapers in their exposes of the lives of celebrities.
Why didn’t the police act? It appears that some of the senior police in Britain were on the payroll of Rupert Murdoch’s empire, afraid that his media would expose something about their personal life or simply failed to look into thousands of pages of evidence of criminality of the Murdoch Press spanning years.
Certain senior police officers may have provided telephone numbers of vulnerable families to the Murdoch press that enabled the hacking to take place as well as hacking into the phones of the rich and famous.
No wonder the police never employed the full power of the law to hold the editors, executives and the Murdoch family accountable. A couple of reporter/investigators got prison sentences.
We know now what we have always known – namely the collusion of the press, the police and the politicians.
Is Rupert Murdoch a vampire? He held sway over the Houses of Parliament for 30 years based on a single belief. Leaders of the two main political parties believed that they needed the support of the Murdoch Empire for election to government. Murdoch owns 40% f the daily newspapers of this country. Murdoch’s grip made them lifeless figures, a bunch of puppets dancing to his tune. This week our leading politicians have come back to life after decades of living in a coma in relationship to the media.
Based on fear and desire for power, governments and opposition courted the friendship of the Murdoch family to gain approval. Successive Prime Ministers showed him a sickening degree of deference – attending his parties, inviting him regularly to 10 Downing Street, flying to Australia to speak to his executives, regular telephone calls, having his executive home on Christmas Day. The current Prime Minister made the former editor of the News of the World, until January, 2011, his Director of Communications while the leader of the opposition made a former journalist with The Times his Director of Strategy – two examples of two of Murdoch’s men very close to the centre of power.
I watched on BBC Parliament yesterday Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, give a 30 minute speech utterly condemning the Murdoch Empire in Britain. With a rightous fury, he accused News Corp(the Murdoch Empire) of “systematic criminality, collusion with the underworld and abuse of the vulnerable.” It was edge of the seat listening.
“In their behaviour towards those without a voice of their own, News International descended from the gutter to the sewer. The tragedy is that they let the rats out of the sewer.”
He accused Murdoch employees of hacking phones, blagging (ringing and pretending to be another person to get information), email accounts, invading privacy and exploiting grief.
“Many, many wholly innocent men, women and children who at their darkest hour, at the most vulnerable moment of their lives, with no one and nowhere to turn, found their properly private lives. their private losses, their private sorrows, treated as the public property of News International. Their private and innermost feelings and their private tears were bought and sold by News International for commercial gain.”
Gordon Brown said he had gathered a mass of evidence after invasions by some of Murdoch’s media into Brown’s family life. He said he had tried to hold News International to account. “It was opposed by the police. It was opposed by the Home Office. It was opposed by the Civil Service. ..”
A speech of such intense hell, fire and damnation to the Murdoch Empire in the UK may have had indirectly the latent influence of his late father, a Church of Scotland minister. There is clearly no wrath like the wrath of a former Prime Minister’s love of family privacy.
At the end of his speech, I only wish he had used the same passion and moral outrage to stop the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, to stop the widespread corruption of politicians and their false claims on expenses and savage equally the bankers for their gross irresponsibility that social services, working people and the poor must now pay the price.
At last, the public outrage against corrupt politicians, corrupt police and corrupt media has shaken up three pillars of society, namely the press, politicians and police. We, the people, are making small but significant steps to the recovery of accountability, justice and a free and thoughtful media.
We have a long way to go.
The super rich own much of the media in this country. They still dictate policy.
We are sick to death of the super rich getting their editors and reporters to write front page stories in their newspapers digging up scandals about immigrants, refugees, exploiters of social services, single mothers, trade union officials, social workers, self-employed who avoid paying taxes, environmentalists, unemployed, Muslims, Arabs and low paid workers.
The rich and powerful media owners employ an army of lawyers, auditors and accountants to ensure they avoid paying taxes, use tax free havens or pay minimum taxes at the expense of the many. They target the defenceless and the vulnerable.
Issues around the media extend much further than the Murdoch Empire. Far too much of the media peddles issues involving sex, fame and money in the name of the so-called free press. Millions never question the sickness in the media.
You have to work hard for freedom of the press. You have to work hard to ensure that the press holds people with power to account and that includes politicians, the corporate world and media owners themselves.
There are some truly worthy exceptions in the media who uphold meaningful investigative reporting. Sadly, the super rich own far too much of the press ensuring the primacy of their personal interests above all else.
Buddhists take five precepts that serve as ethical bases for their daily lives. The time has come for the entire media, from media bosses to filing clerks, and anybody on the payroll of the press to take five precepts upon employment in this industry.
FIVE PRECEPTS FOR THE MEDIA
1. I undertake to hold people with power, such as politicians, the corporate world, bankers, police, media, to account.
2. I undertake to employ legitimate means to pursue news that is genuinely in the public interest and keep minutes of all meetings with people in power.
3. I undertake not to collude with the police, politicians or corporate moguls to support their interests at the expense of vulnerable men, women and children.
4. I undertake to ensure that where there is genuine concern about information in our hands (the media) we will make this information available rather than lie, deny or hide from the proper authorities.
5. I agree to attend the select committees in the Houses of Parliament to answer serious allegations of any abuse of trust of the media towards the people.
There is a Chinese proverb. The rotting fish starts at the head. We need a free press to express our freedom to question and to act.