Blog Prompt #11 (Expository)
Rupert Murdoch's UK newspaper News of the World was recently found to have illegally hacked into the phones of British royalty, famous actors, murder victims, and families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Source: "Murdoch's Watergate?" Newsweek, 10 July 2011, http://www.newsweek.com/2011/07/10/murdoch-s-watergate.html Murdoch's vast media empire (The London Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fox TV, Fox News, HarperCollins Publishers, StarWorld, StarHub, Sky News) is now severely undermined by this ethics scandal. Is it ethically right to participate in the newsroom culture Murdoch fostered, "where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means"? Write in ABC/PEEL format.
I find it ethnically wrong to do such a thing. This is because it is violating peoples' rights, as well as commiting an illigal act. However, as they wanted to present interesting infomation to the public, and to earn more money, they themselves caused such a scandal.
This is ethnically wrong as Murdoch had violated people's rights. By hacking into people's phones, and accessing information that are not theirs, they are invading people's privacy, and thus is an offence. The newsweek article states that, "Thousands of private phone messages hacked". This shows the large scale of how they had access private information of people messages, and thus not respecting the privacy of these people. This would then be violating their rights, and is why it is ethnically wrong to do so.
Secondly, they resorted to illigal means to gather the information they wanted. It states that Murdoch resorted to illegal means, such as "bribery, wiretapping, and other forms of lawbreaking" to gather its news. It also resorted to bribary to cover up its crimes. This shows how Murdoch had no ethnic values and morals, resorting to these methods to get the news. These methods are very dispicable, and thus is ethnically wrong to do such to get the news.
Yet, they did so to serve the public such information, in order to earn more money. They had hacked into handphones of royals and celebrities "ranging from Prince William and actor Hugh Grant" . They wanted these news to share with the world as gossip, in order to earn money. However, they should not resort to such means to get the news. If the party refuses to share such information, they should not hack their cellphones to get it. Thus, I would feel that their methods are ethnically wrong.
To conclude, I feel that the company means of getting news was ethnically wrong. They had resorted to illigal means, and violated people's rights to get the information. However, as they had the intentions to share the story with the public, they did such actions. However, their actions were to extreme, and ended up being illigal, and thus is ethnically wrong.
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Hi. I think that you have clearly shown your three solid points to prove your stand of the argument, which is good. However, for your first point in which you state that it is wrong to access private information of people as it is invading their privacy, you solely mentioned the large-scale damage done, however you did not really show your argument there. You should elaborate more to relate how invading others privacy is morally wrong, other than being an offense, for example it also affects them psychologically etc. Overall, not bad.
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