Shannon W Unit 24: Current media affairs in public services P4, M2, D1
Task 3 (P4,M2,D1)
Media empires
Media empires are huge companies that have a big influence on their audience and some example
of a huge companies would be the ‘News of the world’ and ‘the sun’. The media is having a huge
influence on the Government, the general public and the public services. However, the case study I
am choosing to analyse throughout this report is the ‘News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal’
which lead to the company being shut down as a result of its illegal activity. In 2011, The News of the
Worlds rival, The Guardian, published allegations about what they were doing and as a result the
police began to investigate. Due to them essentially hacking into people’s phones, it caused a huge
public backlash and they News of the World announced their closure on the 7 th of July 2011. As it is
still an ongoing investigation, several journalists that worked for The News of the World have been
jailed for invasion of privacy as well as taking and paying bribes.
A case study I will be talking about through this report is about an English school girl called Milly
Dowler went missing in 2002 and the News of the World started to hack her phone in order to try
and find her before the police could. As a result of hacking Dowler’s phone, her parents thought she
was alive because the News of the World were listening to their voice mails and this deleted them
from the phone. It wasn’t just this one occasion where the News of the World were accused of
hacking into people’s phones; they were also caught hacking into Afghan and Iraq veterans, as well
as the phones of 7/7 survivors.
In this case, there are three main areas to focus on and these areas are the News of the World, the
police and the Government. In my opinion, I believe that the News of the World had the most power
in this situation. To begin with, they had control over the conservative government, which was run
by David Cameron at the time, because the government were afraid to intervene in fear that the
News of the World would portray them negatively in their newspapers and as a result they thought
people may not vote for them.
The police are the second area to focus on because during the phone hacking scandal investigation,
there were several police officers which were jailed for receiving money from The News of the World
in return of getting some advice and tips on how to hack into celebrity’s personal information. This
means that the police were being controlled and bribed by the News of the World.
Overall, I think the media had the most control and influence in this case because the News of the
World had an influence on the Governments actions, which resulted in them not investigating the
situation as well as they should have done. The relationship between the News of the World and the
government became a rising concern over the phone hacking. A News of the World editor at the
time, who is called Andy Coulson, became David Cameron’s very own press advisor. It was then
believed that David Cameron didn’t want to investigate the phone hacking scandal as much as he
should have because he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of News International, which could
possibly result in the loss of support from their newspapers. Coulson was arrested after he resigned
from his job as David Cameron’s press advisor and a few journalists have stated that he indirectly
asked them to use their ‘dark skills’ in order to get some stories. Coulson was also questioned and
released by the police so they could gather as much intel from him as possible about the phone
hacking scandal.
Task 3 (P4,M2,D1)
Media empires
Media empires are huge companies that have a big influence on their audience and some example
of a huge companies would be the ‘News of the world’ and ‘the sun’. The media is having a huge
influence on the Government, the general public and the public services. However, the case study I
am choosing to analyse throughout this report is the ‘News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal’
which lead to the company being shut down as a result of its illegal activity. In 2011, The News of the
Worlds rival, The Guardian, published allegations about what they were doing and as a result the
police began to investigate. Due to them essentially hacking into people’s phones, it caused a huge
public backlash and they News of the World announced their closure on the 7 th of July 2011. As it is
still an ongoing investigation, several journalists that worked for The News of the World have been
jailed for invasion of privacy as well as taking and paying bribes.
A case study I will be talking about through this report is about an English school girl called Milly
Dowler went missing in 2002 and the News of the World started to hack her phone in order to try
and find her before the police could. As a result of hacking Dowler’s phone, her parents thought she
was alive because the News of the World were listening to their voice mails and this deleted them
from the phone. It wasn’t just this one occasion where the News of the World were accused of
hacking into people’s phones; they were also caught hacking into Afghan and Iraq veterans, as well
as the phones of 7/7 survivors.
In this case, there are three main areas to focus on and these areas are the News of the World, the
police and the Government. In my opinion, I believe that the News of the World had the most power
in this situation. To begin with, they had control over the conservative government, which was run
by David Cameron at the time, because the government were afraid to intervene in fear that the
News of the World would portray them negatively in their newspapers and as a result they thought
people may not vote for them.
The police are the second area to focus on because during the phone hacking scandal investigation,
there were several police officers which were jailed for receiving money from The News of the World
in return of getting some advice and tips on how to hack into celebrity’s personal information. This
means that the police were being controlled and bribed by the News of the World.
Overall, I think the media had the most control and influence in this case because the News of the
World had an influence on the Governments actions, which resulted in them not investigating the
situation as well as they should have done. The relationship between the News of the World and the
government became a rising concern over the phone hacking. A News of the World editor at the
time, who is called Andy Coulson, became David Cameron’s very own press advisor. It was then
believed that David Cameron didn’t want to investigate the phone hacking scandal as much as he
should have because he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of News International, which could
possibly result in the loss of support from their newspapers. Coulson was arrested after he resigned
from his job as David Cameron’s press advisor and a few journalists have stated that he indirectly
asked them to use their ‘dark skills’ in order to get some stories. Coulson was also questioned and
released by the police so they could gather as much intel from him as possible about the phone
hacking scandal.
