Is hypocrisy inherent in journalism?

Journalists and papers should definitely be held to account. What right have they to hold fellow bodies and public figures to account otherwise? The scrutiny of and outrage towards News International is totally right.

The hint of crowing and celebration that accompanied it among Murdoch’s media rivals probably is not quite as correct. The feeling that, in the reporting of the scandal, other newspapers have rehashed old News of the World stories for their own gains (thinly veiled in an ostensible act of public protection) is definitely not.

The fact that figures for tabloid newspaper circulation mostly outstrip those of broadsheets is regularly offered as proof that people read the tabloids for their gory stories. In a recent Nouse comment piece on the subject, the Sun’s figures stomped all over the Guardian’s. Yet the most galvanising story so far this summer is being played out in all its grisly, readership-winning glory on the front pages, not of any tabloid, but of the Guardian.

Their use of the sweet, heart-wrenching photo of Sarah Payne was the incident most openly questionable – why immediately jump for that photo when they had a more relevant photo, of Rebekah Brookes and Sara Payne (the mother whose phone was hacked, and the actual target of the story), readily at hand?

I can see the arguments that might stand for the photo’s usage – in a roundabout-way, the phone only existed to be hacked because of Sarah’s abduction and murder, as her mother was given it during the campaign for ‘Sarah’s Law’ (which allowed controlled access to the Sex Offenders Register), so she is, of course, an important figure in the story. But not the central figure. The story was not about Sarah’s kidnap and murder. It was about the horrific abuse the News of the World inflicted on her family. We should be raging today at the invasion of privacy, not reawakening in a vague sense our outrage at the abuse and murder of Sarah Payne.

In my opinion, the photo’s usage is indicative of a quiet hypocrisy at the heart of the reporting on the scandal – in complaining of the profits made on the families’ grief and the celebrities’ names, these papers too put their fingers in the grubby but lucrative hacking pie. I can feel that some people will find the point I’m suggesting a bit tenuous. But within a couple of hours the Guardian had swapped the front page photo off. I wonder what could have prompted them to do this, other than a sudden burst of conscience about their questionable motivation.

The Guardian has done a sterling job in bringing the phone hacking scandal to the fore and demanding the attention it deserves from public and parliament. Furthermore, to be fair, it is not alone in the use of the photo (see Reuters; although not every journalism outlet felt compelled to use it so gratuitously – see the BBC). But the hypocrisy speaks a little louder coming from the paper so keen to protect privacy (flying in the face of their total and utter support of the stealing of classified state documents by Wikileaks) and save us all from the evil of the News of the World. But then, does the Guardian have a choice?

Phone hacking by the News of The World has been in and out of the papers since 2005. That’s right. Six whole years. Police, parliament and public have repeatedly failed to take any real interest. Had we listened and acted when it started, the scandal would have been tackled properly years ago. Sara Payne’s phone, for example, was hacked ten years ago. It took the emergence of the Milly Dowler hacking incident for the mass public to care. Perhaps then, the Guardian, in its quest for truth, has to play with the very tear-jerking devils it loathes.

But to me, the hints of self-promotion generated by using the ill-gotten stories by proxy are still extremely uncomfortable. Not as disquieting as the phone hacking itself, but not the high-quality journalism I feel entitled to from a paper so critical of the flaws of others.

The point I’m trying to make is that the cracks within the journalism industry run deep; deeper than this appalling phone hacking scandal. Journalism is an industry: it exists to profit; it exists because it profits. Headlines must grab, photos must wrench hearts, and content must impassion.

Several important reviews are well underway concerning the hacking (the Leveson inquiry, Operation Weeting, Operation Elveden), and there must be optimism for a future of better journalism in the UK. But profits rule the papers, all the papers. And while profits reign, integrity always comes second, and often, as we have seen in the phone hacking scandal, morality does too.

The above views are solely of the author and in no way reflect the views of theyorker.

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