Posted on 07/19/2011 7:05:51 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
How does this year's phone hacking scandal at the now-defunct British tabloid News of the World . . . compare with last year's contretemps over the release of classified information by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks and his partners at the New York Times, the Guardian and other newspapers?
At bottom, they're largely the same story.
. . .
Both, in short, are despicable instances of journalistic malpractice, for which some kind of price ought to be paid. So why is one a scandal, replete with arrests, resignations and parliamentary inquests, while the other is merely a controversy, with Mr. Assange's name mooted in some quarters for a Nobel Peace Prize?
. . .
the damage caused by WikiLeaks almost certainly exceeded what was done by News of the World, precisely because Mr. Assange and his media enablers were targeting bigger—if often more vulnerable—game. . . . Shouldn't there be some accountability, or at least soul-searching, about this, too?
Don't count on it: It would require too much introspection among people whose primary emotional mode is furious, and perpetual, self-righteousness.
. . .
the media has alighted on one of its convenient little narratives, this one about the all-powerful media mogul, his lidless eyes gazing over every corner, closet and cellar of his empire, his obedient minions debasing everything they touch. That this media Sauron has now begged forgiveness of the Dowler family, shut the offending paper down and accepted the resignations of his top lieutenants hardly seems to have made an impression. But as someone noted recently in connection to L'Affaire DSK, few things are as unstoppable—or as prone to error—as a stupid media narrative.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
. . . but the "stupid" media narrative often makes only too much sense when viewed through the lens of the self interest of wire-service journalism.
Wire service journalism promotes the meme of an objective, olympian detached journalism which sees and reports events without fear or favor. It promotes, IOW, the idea of a natural journalism monopoly with the wire service at its center. An attack on Fox News is a counterattack defending that corrupt, self-agrandizing principle. "Stupid" is scarcely the right word for it . . .
We can’t forget the NY Slimes treasonous actions neither!
Ping.
Obviously the left thinks hacking and info theft is okay for wikileaks to engage in.
Nevermind the treason and espionage aspects as it is all the same.
But because News of the World is owned by a guy who doesn’t follow the DNC faxes...
BTTT
I know I’ll get beat up for this, but the difference is that one was a one time dump of a ton of hacked data that was slowly being given out by an entity that specilizes in leaking that type of info and embarrassing governments. The other had been allegedly going on for years, involving cover-ups, payouts, bribing and paying off police, interfering with investigations, rewarding those involved (instead of punishing) and involved hot button topics like a murdered girl and 9/11 victims - all done by what the public considered a respectible news agency. And now the original wistleblower turns up dead.
I don’t think that Murdoch was involved with any of it, and don’t think it will (or should) affect any of the US properties like Fox. However, the actions over there were really beyond the pale, and there shouldn’t be any attempt to diminish what was actually done.
NotW and WSJ are tools of the oppressors who only exist inside the small box and civic space granted them by the rulers who Wikileaks confronted head from outside of the box.
The state is the oppressor, any news organization that abides by any laws, diktats, and regulations of the state is not a free media.
There will be no stamp tax on digital broadsheets, there will be no groveling for leniency to corrupt judiciaries upon convictions of blasphemy against the elites.
The other side is the UK Government has ongoing wiretapping and intelligence gathering going on inside the UK and abroad on a daily basis that is thousands of times more complicated than the penny ante stuff the NotW crew were running.
Foreign intelligence agencies have wiretapping and intelligence gathering operations ongoing inside the UK that are tens of thousands of times more complicated than the NotW operation.
Murdoch could have bought an island and given his intelligence arm some diplomatic passports and the Brits would have had none of this ever be known to the general public.
NotW is being dragged forth as an example of punishment upon private entrepreneurs to never again compete against the POWER OF THE SOVEREIGN to compete for intelligence at the subterfuge level.
Brave New World’s first huge reach into total media control.
Last week Janet Napolitano expanded explicitly the future plans of the US Gov to perform no warrant surveillance of every and any American and any foreigner in the entire world, at any time, and to include rendition without warrants or court orders...
There are but a handful of private organizations in the world that could theoretically compete against the power of the sovereign, and one of them is being neutered in the UK under the harsher UK legal standards as we speak...
Tempests in a British Teapot
Posted By Rich Trzupek On July 19, 2011 @ 12:21 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage
There’s no doubt that the News Corp. scandal in the United Kingdom is indeed a scandal. Yet, is it the end of the world for Rupert Murdoch? Is it definitive proof that Murdoch’s media empire is unprincipled, undisciplined and evil? Does it warrant a congressional investigation? Is it the singular event that will bring down Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, as the Left so fervently hopes?
The answer to all of these questions would appear to be “no.” Phone hacking is reprehensible even by the sketchy standards of tabloid journalism, in addition to actually being illegal. But the self-righteous clamor resounding from the Left over a British scandal is several orders of magnitude removed from the story’s importance to American audiences. The Left’s unqualified delight in finding a piece of Murdoch’s media empire caught doing something wrong says a lot more about the way leftists think than it does about News Corp....
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/07/19/tempests-in-a-british-teapot-2/print/
I’ve been wondering when someone would draw this comparison and raise the question. Thanks.
Mark Steyn on Rush Limbaugh just stated some of those “hackings” are most likely not illegal in the UK.
SO, until I know more I`d say for now left-wing media is far more legally culpable publishes Secret, Top Secret, classified and stolen documents as oposed to NOTW.
I think people are just focusing on the “hackings” and not focusing on all of the other aspects - I think you have to look at the big picture. Even if “some” of the hackings aren’t illegal, “some” of them definitely are. but even if you discount whatever few of those instances Steyn believes aren’t illegal, you still have to contend with the bribes, the cover-ups, the fact that it’s been going on for years, the fact they were deleting the voicemails of a murdered girl so that the girls family believed she was still alive, the fact that among other suspicious links to NOTW, higher-ups at Scotland yard were actually on the NOTW payroll, the fact that the officers that have been linked to NOTW let 11,000 pages of evidence sit in a room without even being looked at for years, and the fact that the previous editor who was intimately involved with the phone hacking and bribing of police, instead of being punished, was given a cushy job in the prime ministers office. And now the initial whistleblower from the original investigation turns up dead, and files and a computer are thrown away “by accident”? Laws were broken, even outside of the hacking, and from the looks of it, it streches pretty far.
There’s a lot more going on here than someone just accessing someone else’s voicemail. Not saying the left wing media here in the states are innocent, but we still shouldn’t dismiss and trivialize how huge and extensive this is in the UK.
Steyn, ‘ so easy a kid could do it. All c-phones pin numbers come as 0000 or 1234’.
And? Palin’s email was hacked with her birthday and information from her wikipedia page.
So people who don’t change their passwords deserve to be hacked?
Slightly different than phone hacking for news content. A story that is years old and whose participants have already been jailed.
This "scandal" was manufactured by Soros thru the Guardian and other leftist media outlets to destroy Murdock and bring an end to FOX News/The Wall Street Journal/New York Post.
When I said that the wikileaks dump was a one time event, I meant that although Assange has released the info over months, it all stemmed from one dump - one gigantic trove of information that he’s doled out as he sees fit. And yes, as the distrubuter of top secret infomration he should be prosicuted. Although reasonable people can disagree about his motives - leave that for the courts. I don’t give him enough credit for attempting to “prompt worldwide outrage against the US military and for the international courts to arrest, try, convict and execute our soldiers” not that I don’t think he would have loved it if that happenned, but I think he was just trying to embarrass the US in the worlds eyes.
But still, the issue is that what’s going on with NOTW - that you see it as simply “phone hacking for news content” and “a story that is years old and whose participants have already been jailed” means that you don’t know the full story and how far it reaches. Some of the participants have been jailed, but certainlly not all. In fact, there was no way to prosicute or even identify most of them, becasue the police on the NOTW payroll let 11,000 pages of evidence sit in a room for years without being looked at. Please refer to my other posts as to why this isn’t just a matter of “A story that is years old and whose participants have already been jailed”.
I also forgot to mention, I agree with you 100% that the Guardian and other leftist media outlets are trying to use all of this to destroy Murdock and bring an end to FOX News/The Wall Street Journal/New York Post. Which is obviously wrong - all of this, as serious as it is, is still limited to the UK, and has nothing to do with Murdoch himself or any of the US properties.
It just wasn’t manufactured by them.
And "it all" did not "stem from one dump". Bradley Manning turned over multiple dumps over several months and Assange released them over months.
So there has been a trial of the Scotland Yard officers who "were on the payroll" and they have been convicted?
Please list all the current guilty parties. Not the ones like Brooks who have been arrested (and released) so an investigation could be done, or the head of Scotland Yard who resigned because it occurred on his watch, but people convicted and sentenced.
I was not aware that Assange has gone on record stating that his aim was the destruction of the US military. Can you post those links? However, he is still just one man - and neither he, nor Manning have been convicted and sentanced, so by your logic, they’re also innocent?
The investigation in scotland yard has just begun, and for the first time it’s being run by people not invilved with NOTW.
You don’t find it odd that according to Paul Stephenson’s testimony (the head of Scotland yard that you mentioned), almost a full quarter of the people in the police media relations departments all came from news international? That’s not even including Wallis? Inverstigations are still happennning, and I have no doubt that convictions will follow. And of course the computer and files were thrown out “by accident” and the 11,000 pages of evidence with 4000 names were just “overlooked”, and the initial witleblower just “commited suicide”, right?
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