Home News Columnists Ken Oxley

Stop the Press?

Jul 12 2009 by Ken Oxley, Sunday Sun

WHAT emotion am I supposed to feel after reading about the News of the World’s phone tapping scandal?

Shame, perhaps, that the profession I’ve spent the best part of my working life in could stoop so low.

Or maybe anger that all journalists, regardless of who they work for, have been tarred with the same scummy brush.

As it happens, I feel neither. What I do feel, above all else, is jealousy.

Newspapers were going through a tough time long before the term “credit crunch” was coined. And, since then, things have become even more desperate.

Staffing levels have plummeted and budgets have been pared to the bone. So when I saw the jaw-dropping amounts of money News of the World journalists have been allowed to squander on the services of dodgy private investigators to eavesdrop on the rich and famous, the green-eyed monster reared its head.

My initial reaction was to wonder who signs their expenses claims. Most journalists I know get a visit from the Spanish Inquisition if they so much as buy a contact a pint of beer.

That makes it easy for those of us working at a local or regional level to take the moral high ground and “tut-tut” at the appalling behaviour of the nationals.

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