Silent Phone Hacking

The recent phone hacking scandal in the U.K. brings up an interesting question of self-reflexive visibility in the press.

I knew that phone hacking was a policy of tabloid newspapers in the U.K.. I have known for about two or three years that this was the case. I am not trying to create some kind of bizarre "I told you so" situation here or claim that I am some sort of whistle-blower. Instead, I would just like to point out that if I knew that this was going on, everyone in the U.K. government, press and police knew it was going on.

As more 'revelations' emerge, the it is increasingly unavoidable to posit an entire web of complicity and corruption underlying the phone hacking scandal. Everybody knew and everybody protected the deceit in order to hold each other up in this nefarious syndicate. This is even more obvious when off-the-record interviews are taken with people close to the press, government of police which basically state "Yeah, of course this was happening, it was normal practice".

It is striking that something so pervasive was the very issue not reported on by the press. Granted, some news outlets like The Guardian took a steps to warn politicians of the oncoming storm. However, I find it hard to ignore the idea that this was such a mundane, everyday occurrence in tabloid media that they themselves could not see it as news-worthy.

The entire situation is a mess and I hope it foregrounds how messy the politics/media/police relationship has become in the U.K..

-The English Student