By: Surian Soosay
It’ll be interesting to see what ramifications the British phone hacking scandals have on this side of the pond. Amongst the thousands of media holdings in the Murdoch Empire there’s the Wall Street Journal (run by Les Hinton) and, probably most disturbingly, the Fox News Channel.
Via an article in the Huffington Post I came across a 2003 study relating to Fox
News. It looked at 3 misperceptions that were highly related to support for the Iraq war.
- 48% of Americans incorrectly believed that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda had been found
- 22% incorrectly believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq
- 25% incorrectly believed that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq.
It got really interesting when they looked at where people were sourcing their news:
- By: Surian Soosay
But back to the News of the World. Paul McMullan was features editor at the paper and you have probably seen Steve Hogan and Hugh Grant tearing into him on UK TV panel discussions.
But the most interesting interview I’ve seen was one he did for Australian television in which we get glimpses of how a corporate culture goes bad – “It all started out as fun” – and insights into the moral judgements that were being applied – or not in this case. Basically celebrities were fair game for hacking and then the practice spread to just about anyone who might help sell papers – “Did we get lazy? Possibly we did”. (He also tells a story about Rupert Murdoch’s reaction to the Hugh Grant hooker story.)
I found this quote from Paul interesting:
Very few people have sympathy for people like Kylie [Minogue] or Hugh Grant who earns five million quid a picture and who’s bleeting on “Oooo, someone listened to my messages.” Well, come on. Get over it. Most people in Britain earn 200 quid a week for a hard week’s work and would willingly swap places.
It seems Paul’s justification is falling on deaf ears with the British public at the moment, but a few weeks ago, I think many might have agreed. And I think there might be a difference between the UK and US on this. Am I right in thinking that Americans might think more kindly of folks who earn a lot of money or have celebrity – a little less envy perhaps? I’m not sure, and I’d love to hear your thoughts (on this and the rest of the hacking scandals).
Vickie:
To set the stage, I’ve spent my career as a working reporter and editor. In MY opinion, the current flap in London is an outgrowth of societal differences between the American and British public reflected in journalism at this time in our history. American journalism, for many reasons, has preached a doctrine of objectivity in responsible reporting; theoretically, taking sides must be left to the editorial page. We diverge from those strictures in our own tabloid press – just stand on line at the supermarket and read the headlines. But MOST of the American tabloids are not taken seriously by many American readers (one hopes) – they are considered entertainment. I think the English tabloid press incorporates the concept of entertainment with a self-congratulatory and specious claim of reporting “real news.” The moral choices here go beyond what I am describing. In sum, historically, the difference has been one of editorial attitude. Of course this doesn’t hold true for the English broadsheets like the Times and the Guardian. As to your second query – the envy factor – if I were living in London on 500 quid a week, I’d be angry too. Athletes, entertainers and managing directors/CEOs make obscene amounts of money on both sides of the Atlantic; perhaps we have our value system a tad perverted?
Oh, many thanks for this Marc.
Gosh yes – those magazines at the supermarket – I’d like to expand on that for UK readers who may not be familiar with the practice. At the checkout in an American supermarket there’s always a rack of magazines placed at eye level while you’re waiting in the queue. They have crazy headlines. I just went to ‘The National Enquirer’ site (the most notorious of the mags) looking for some and learnt 5 things:
1. I was hoping to find really crazy headlines like ‘I had sex with an alien’. But actually they seemed to be much the same as I’d expect to see in the ‘News of the World’ or ‘Sun’ – more like celeb A slept with celeb B)
2. There is a British edition of the National Enquirer (so perhaps some Brits already know it?)
3. At one time the US edition employed a lot of British tabloid journalists from Fleet Street to beef up its appeal
4. Like the ‘News of the World’, the National Enquirer has actually had some big scoops eg. John Edwards case. (And like the ‘News of the World’, they like to flaunt it when they do.)
5. Like the ‘News of the World’, the National Enquirer openly admits that it pays sources for stories.
Marc, please correct me if I’m wrong, but that last one might be unusual here – or at least, when it’s done it’s not done as openly as it is in the UK.
I take your point about American tabloids not being taken seriously. I just read that when the National Enquirer has broken with a true scoop, sometimes other papers hang back – they’ve cried wolf so often.
I think that the ‘News of the World’ would fall into your entertainment bracket though as well. How much of it was believed? Curiously it sold pretty well to A,B households which advertisers liked. Presumably they read the News of the World for entertainment and then picked up the Telegraph or Independent or something.
On the issue of irresponsible reporting, there was a letter in the New York Times today (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/celebrity-targets-of-tabloid-cheer-its-demise/) from Paul Gambaccini. Back in 1984 he used to be a DJ on BBC radio one and one day a reporter from the News of the World rang him up and insisted they met right away. In Paul’s words:
“The scumbag then informed me that the paper was working on a story it had obtained from a young man who had proved he knew me by recording a telephone conversation concerning subject matter not remotely related to the “story”. The exclusive was that I had sexual intercourse with a number one male chart star on the floor of my kitchen during my birthday party in front of my guests, who included Boy George. The only true part of this story was that I did indeed have a kitchen floor.”
Vickie:
As far as I know, the only one of our supermarket tabloids that pays for information may be the National Enquirer, but that’s just a guess on my part. As a working member of what I hoped was the ethically-responsible press, I tried to ignore those tabloids, although I once met an interviewer from the Enquirer at a midtown Manhattan hotel for a possible job. I didn’t get an offer, but I took a good bath wehen I went home.
Well, I can easily imagine TV commentators/show hosts/comedians and others making similar comments — and I often see similar sentiments in the comments on news articles online (they’re celebrities, it’s part of the package, it’s a small price to pay, etc.). Whether those feelings are more or less here, I have no idea.
Oddly enough, I’m having my ESL students write about the media, privacy, and celebrity right now. We’ll see what they have to say!
Oh look forward to hearing about it Clarissa if you have the time. I’ve been very interested in today’s developments – well the whole week’s developments, in fact.
Just wanted to mention that there’s a great post by here by Michael Rundell on linguistic issues surrounding the Murdoch apology: http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/sorry-is-the-hardest-word
Hi Vicki,
I haven’t been by for a while, but thought I’d drop in my tuppence worth.
I honestly don’t think it’s envy that creates the British antipathy towards wealthy celebrity. It’s the sense of undeserved wealth that riles us. People were thrilled for the hardworking Scots couple who won some epic sum on the Euromillions. And of course, there is a far stronger Socialist mindset here than across the pond- a kind of back of the mind notion that no one should have that much money (not that many of us would refuse it if we were offered!) whereas the US thing of ‘make as much as you can and screw everyone else’ means there’s more respect for people who make an easy buck.
P.S. Marc- I’d literally give a kidney or something to earn £500 a week. I’m lucky to get that in a month.
Hi Solo! Good to see you back.
Well the phone hacking scandal has continued on and it’s still gripping my interest. Thought I’d just add another link I just came across though to do with Fox news. Seems those survey results I mentioned may pertain more to the folks Fox news attracts than Fox news itself. Curiously, in another survey, Fox news viewers knew less about international events than people who didn’t watch the news: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/fox-news-viewers-less-informed-people-fairleigh-dickinson_n_1106305.html#undefined