The media industry has a long history of ethics scandals over the years. This article from the Economist talks about the highly covered hacking scandal in England by News International’s tabloid, News of the World. While tabloids have always been known for using questionable methods to gather information and come up with good headlines, News of the World took this way too far. In possibly the worst ethics scandal of the year, News of the World was revealed to have hacked the phones of possibly thousands of victims. While it had already confessed to hacking a number of celebrities and politicians, when it was revealed that they hacked into the phone of a teenage murder victim, it sparked public outcry. The scandal was not limited to the hacking of phones and also included the bribery of police officers for information and was accused of possible interference in the police investigation after they deleted messages from the dead girl’s phone. It also became known that they had also been hacking into the phones of soldiers deployed in Afghanistan and victims of terrorist attacks as well.
This scandal would lead to the end of News of the World, despite it being one of the top selling tabloids in the country. It would also harm the reputation of Rupurt Murdoch, one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the world. He owns many news corporation worldwide, including Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and NewsCorp, which the FBI is investigating.
