A Charles Sturt University CSU) media ethicist says the News of the World phone-tapping scandal in the United Kingdom has all the makings of ‘perfect injustice’, and Plato saw it coming.

 

Dr Edward Spence, a senior lecturer in media ethics at the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst  and  senior research fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) in Canberra , said, “The storm that is engulfing the News Corporation media empire, as a result of the News of the World fallout, has turned into the ‘perfect storm’ of controversy and a ‘perfect injustice’, something that was foreseen by ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

 

“In Plato’s dialogue The Republic, the myth of Gyges sets-out with uncanny and clear foresight  what happens when power, deception, secrecy, and abuse of trust converge in a collusion of ‘the perfect injustice’. This is what we today call corruption – a condition of total deception by which the unjust make themselves look just and proper. The myth explains how anyone with a magical ring that made them invisible could use their power with the authority of a position of trust to commit crimes that served their interest, under the pretence of justice and propriety, and do so with total impunity.”

 

Dr Spence said in the current context a powerful news organisation in a position of trust, whose professional role is to inform the public on matters of public interest, has significantly abused that role.

 

“Rather than engaging in the dissemination of information that is the legitimate and expected role of the media, the News of the World secretly engaged in stealing information from unsuspecting citizens using the most nefarious means. It was both illegal and unethical. Worse still, and this is when it becomes unconscionable, it was corrupt.

 

“Although all corrupt actions are unethical, not all unethical actions are corrupt and not all unethical actions are illegal. Some forms of media corruption where no existing laws are breached would not be deemed illegal, but as forms of corruption they would still be unethical. Apartheid laws in South Africa, for example, were legal under that government, but were undoubtedly unethical.

 

“In the News of the World case, the secret invasion of people’s privacy would still constitute media corruption even if it was not illegal. The recognised expected role of News of the World as a media organisation was the dissemination of information for the public good and not the secretive appropriation of information for its personal commercial interests.

 

The News of the World actions constitute corruption simply because those actions corrupted the very role of journalism that gave it its legitimacy as a media organisation.

 

“But the News of the World scandal is even worse than a mere case of media corruption. It is corruption on a grand scale involving the three pillars of democracy; the media, the police and the government. Not only were police officers bribed, but, as suggested by the UK Prime Minister, Mr David Cameron, recently, politicians may also have been involved.

 

“Corruption of this scale aims at the very heart of public ethics. It raises the crucial question how an advanced democratic country that chastises other countries for human rights violations can allow and tolerate such flagrant violations of the most basic requirements of moral conduct, integrity, fairness, and decency, in its own backyard.