The News International phone hacking scandal has gone from bad to worse with allegations of police investigations having been hampered by News representatives in pursuit of stories. News is seeing a commercial implication with advertisers like Ford withdrawing advertising as a result of the latest revelations. Kent News is reporting planned protests at retailers selling News International titles.
Beyond the appalling hacking impacting so many people in the UK is the apparent cover-up by News International for several years. This cover-up is apparent in the reporting, or lack thereof, here in Australia of what is the biggest newspaper related scandal in decades.
The hacking and the cover up represent an ethical failure for which News at its highest levels globally must be accountable. To date it has sought to avoid such accountability. The repeated denials by News leave it open for other conclusions to be drawn.
Listening to the latest on the story yesterday made me wonder if I would take their titles off the shelves as stand against their actions. If an advertiser can distance themselves from unacceptable behavior by not supporting a product and or company then why not the retailer?
Business has no morals, only people do. The only reason adverstisers would “distance” themselves from something is because it might impact on their sales.
Browser,
I think you might find an entire generation of business people that disagree. Over the past half-decade or so, ethical practices have been a huge focus for both emerging business and old business undergoing a generational change.
These businesses, and those who run them, recognise the role that such entities play in modern society. The decisions of these businesses are not always driven by profit and in the attempt to maintain high ethical standards their actions may actually be unprofitable. These businesses see the costs of societal contribution as an acceptable expanse that often provides no return other than the knowledge that they are maintaining a high ethical standard in their operation.
However I’m not suggesting this phenomenon is happening in this particular instance.
It’s a moot point. News Ltd thought they would create positive PR spin by paying millions to popular celebrities who had been hacked. It might have worked for a while.
The Metro Police have now identified up to 4000 other hacking victims. (no doubt they will think they are entitled to similar compensation).
This is now a billion dollar issue.
News Ltd have done the only sensible commercial thing. THey have shut down -closed- never to publish again – News of the World.
This decision is a smart commercial move and has nothing to with ethics.
THE NEWS OF THE WORLD newspaper has been axed. news ltd will publish the final issue on sunday…. BBC radio