单选题
The Phone-Hacking Scandal: The Lowest Low
A. The phone-hacking scandal harms more than merely the News of the World: it threatens Rupert Murdoch, the press as a whole, the police and politicians.
B. Until this week, the victims in the scandal over the illegal hacking of mobile-phone messages by the News of the World seemed mostly to be celebrities (名流), royals and others too privileged to command much sympathy. The nasty deeds of Britain's biggest-selling Sunday paper—owned by News International, Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper outfit, look more amoral and more seriously criminal. The circle of blame and ill fame is widening.
C. The big difference is Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was murdered in Surrey in March 2002. On July 4th The Guardian reported accusations that Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator working with News of the World journalists, hacked into Dowler's voice-mail in the days after her disappearance, removing some messages to free up space when her account became full. The effect was to make her family think she might still be alive. The relatives of people killed in the terrorist attacks in London of July 2005, and of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, might also have been targeted. Similarly, the families of two girls murdered in Cambridge shire in 2002 : in an unusual scene in what is an increasingly exaggerated event, the actor Hugh Grant made that link in April, in a secretly recorded interview with a former journalist. Tom Watson, a Labor MP (Member of Parliament), made an even more serious charge in Parliament on July 6th: that News International paid people to interfere in a murder case 'on behalf of known criminals'. The firm says it doesn't understand that accusation.
D. Mr. Mulcaire was jailed in 2007 for hacking voice-mail messages of members of the royal household, along with Clive Goodman, the News of the World's royal correspondent. At the time, and for a long time afterwards, executives at News International insisted that Mr. Goodman was a lone, villain operator. In the past few months that defense has collapsed, amid a flood of civil cases brought by the growing list of hacking victims, pay-offs, and the arrest of more journalists. Yet the Dowler development has deteriorated the scandal—not just because of its ruthless immorality but also because it potentially involves abuse of the course of justice, a new level of criminality.
E. If much of this is true, there were no doubts, and few limits, in the way the paper went after its exclusive reports. There might be serious legal and commercial consequences for News International. But others have been disgraced, to at least the police.
F. On July 5th News International acknowledged that, last month, it gave the Metropolitan Police a set of e-mails documenting (illegal) payments to police officers from News of the World journalists in 2003 and after. That is only the latest slander (诽谤) cast on various police forces by this affair. The police in Surrey seem to have known about the Dowler hacking but overlooked it. Worse, the Met itself stands accused of failing for several years to notify potential victims of hacking and failing to pursue leads: the evidence for many recent accusations comes from notes seized from Mr. Mulcaire in 2006. The Met launched a fresh probe, under new command, in January. But its contacting of targets remains mysteriously shadowy.
G. Whether intentionally or otherwise (News International says it wasn't), the news about police payments switched attention onto Andy Coulson, the News of the World's editor from 2003 to 2007—and thus, indirectly onto David Cameron. Mr. Coulson resigned from the paper in 2007 after Mr. Goodman and Mr. Mulcaire were convicted, though he insisted that he knew nothing of their evil methods. He resigned again, this time from his job as Mr. Cameron's communications chief, in January this year, as the hacking scandal intensified. Mr. Cameron's judgment in hiring Mr. Coulson after his tabloid's (小报)unexpected move now looks more awful than ever.
H. As it happens, Mr. Coulson's predecessor as editor, and News International's current chief executive, Rebekah Brooks (above, with Mr. Murdoch), is a close friend of Mr. Cameron, too. Mrs. Brooks was in the editor's chair in 2002; if the latest hacking accusations stand up, her position looks at least as compromised as Mr. Coulson's was in 2007. But, so far, she has denied calls for her resignation, declaring herself 'shocked' at the latest charges and promising to 'vigorously pursue the truth'. Critics wonder whether Mrs. Brooks, who has in the past been indifferently uncooperative with parliamentary inquiries into phone-hacking, or indeed anyone else at News International, with its history of collective confusion, is well-placed to do that.
I. For the moment, at least, Mrs. Brooks appears to be protected by what insiders describe as an intense, almost familial (家庭的) bond with Mr. Murdoch, who is said to prize her business insight and contacts: Mr. Murdoch this week called the recent accusations 'miserable', but stood by her. Events might yet test just how much their bond is worth. Public anger has already persuaded several advertisers to suspend their dealings with the News of the World; some readers may choose to boycott it.
J. Still, Claire Enders, a media analyst, thinks the commercial impact is likely to be modest, given the paper's dominance in the Sunday newspaper market. Much worse, for Mr. Murdoch, is the slim chance that the scandal might affect his bid to buy the rest of BSkyB, a hugely profitable satellite broadcaster in which News Corporation, his parent company, already has a 39% stake. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, looked set finally to approve the deal after an inquiry on its impact on media plurality ends on July 8th. Meanwhile Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, is obliged to consider whether the holders of broadcasting licenses are 'fit and proper'. It is 'closely monitoring the situation'.
K. And it isn't only the Murdoch press that is set to feel the opposition. Whereas in America journalism is a respectable, even respected profession, in Britain it has always been regarded as dirty. But it has rarely been so notorious as now. Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labor Party, wants a public inquiry into the culture and regulation of the press; Mr. Cameron agrees that there ought to be one or more inquiries, after criminal proceedings are over. One result might be a change to the current model of newspaper self-regulation; the Press Complaints Commission, the toothless body responsible for it, has handled the hacking affair terribly.
L. Most MPs were in the past much more diplomatic about the press, especially the Murdoch stable, which, so exaggerated legend had it, could decide the fate of governments. But the most influential factor for politicians has suddenly shifted. Mr. Miliband's tough standpoint towards News International—he joined the team for Mrs. Brooks' resignation—would have been unthinkable in the Blair years. Mr. Cameron shied away from calling for his friend's head too, but described the accusations as 'truly dreadful'. And there may be more to come in this mad, spreading story.