Tough Days For News...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

This week's soap opera in England regarding the bizarre foibles of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation did several things news junkies should wonder about - it highlighted the power of the press, and it brought home its very excesses, which now threaten the separation of government and the press.

Its fallout likely will not bring change to the American journalism landscape, but it is a sobering example of how things can go wrong from one day to the next. Reporters always know that they're on probation, that every story they write and submit carries the weight of the newspaper's reputation. It doesn't take much for an editor to say you blew it and so you shall pay the price. Usually, that means quick dismissal.

In the British case, it was overzealous editors and managers wanting to gain influential power over celebrities and politicians. Newspapers of old used to have the ammo and the resources to aid or sink any would-be elected official. If it wanted to, a newspaper would dispatch its reporter forces against a candidate it felt was not the one it wanted. Conversely, it would laud and use kid gloves on a candidate it did like. Examples of that unwritten philosophy can be found in the U.S. The Dallas Morning News favors the conservative crowd; the Village Voice in New York stands largely on a bit more liberal ground. The Washington Post is fair; the Washington Times is Far Right. The Boston Globe is fair; The Boston Herald is a Republican drum.

That is known and understood by most experienced reporters. You sign up with an outfit and things are said to you so that the mission is made clear. Still, the stories have to be objective, although that in itself is a mirage. reporters cover their bases, but there are ways to steep a story to one side or the other. The publications define themselves, as well. The New York Post is a sensationalist tabloid. It is owned by Rupert Murdoch's media company.

In a way, all print enterprises were stained by the illegal doings of Rupert Murdoch's crowd in London. The press has taken a beating for a decade. Major newspapers in this country have seen their fortunes drop, and on that list is included The Los Angeles Times. Things have changed. The Internet has been a huge entry into the dissemination of news and information. Any monkey can now start a Blog and believe himself to be a newsman.

The other aspect of the Murdoch mess that is more troubling is the injection of the politicians into that particular story. Parliament summoned Murdoch and his son and one of his senior editors to answer questions about the phone hacking, payoffs and bribes it used to conduct business. It has only begun. There are rumblings that Murdoch's American enterprises, including the disgraceful Fox News, may eventually be snared in the probe.

Government intrusion into the role of the press is never good.

Here, however, the British government is after violators of the law. Murdoch has paid millions to assuage people whose reputations his tabloid - the now-defunct News of The World - damaged. Revelations about the extent of the illegality have been stunning. Phone tappings of survivors of English casualties in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were shocking, as was the case of the hacking of a cellular telephone belonging to a teen-age girl who disappeared and was later found dead. In that case, authorities allege employees of News Corp. hacked the girl's phone's cell messages and deleted some, giving police and her family hope that she was still alive if, they hoped, she, herself, was clearing messages off her phone. She wasn't. The News of The World merely wanted to hype the story of her plight and thus keep the story alive, which, as could be expected, helped newspaper sales.

It is a story still too young to see any sort of clear ending.

Murdoch stands to lose big, and he and his son and his senior managers may yet face charges in this country.

Fittingly perhaps, since this is Murdoch, the tale grows sensationally by the day...

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