So asks David Allen Green:
The Times of London is regarded as a form of flagship. For a few it is still the “paper of record” for the United Kingdom. And for News International and perhaps for Rupert Murdoch, it shows that they were able to promote a different and more responsible form of journalism than that practiced at its tabloid sister papers, with their grubby phone hacking, private investigators, and intrusive reporting.
But yesterday there was an admission. The Times admitted that a former reporter used computer hacking as part of an investigation. And not only did the reporter hack into a person’s private email account, he also told his managers he had done so. Faced with this, the Times published the story based on that investigation even though they were “unclear” as to the role of computer hacking in the reporter’s investigation.
You would have thought that the managers would have wanted to know the exact scope of the unauthorised access used in this investigation before they published what was a significant story — a story that severely infringed someone’s privacy. But the Times yesterday told us the managers simply did not know.
The story was about “NightJack”, a popular and extremely well-written blog about the reality of police life. It was written under the pseudonym of “Jack Night” and described the goings on in the fictional world of Smallville and Bigtown. No one who read the blog at the time knew where it was set; indeed, part of its power was that it could have been any urban conurbation, and Jack Night could have been any policeman. Even those hostile to the police in general could gain an understanding of the predicaments which police officers routinely faced in their duties.
Read on.
The answer, incidentally is: possibly not.
