The Murdoch phone hacking scandal: unethical business conduct in media

¶ … ethical or unethical ground rules manifested in the situation (ethical theory that is broken) as well as which ethics theories should be applied to remedy the situation.

The Murdoch incident involved various leading British newspapers, specifically the 'News of the World' but also other tabloids all published by News International, all of which were a subsidiary of News corporation .The owner of News corporation was Rupert Murdoch hence the alias The Murdoch phone hacking scandal. Essentially, employees of the corporation were accused of employing improper means in their endeavor to gain new stories such as telephone hacking and bribing police officers during the years 2005-2007, and their targets for these stories almost always involved celebrities, members of the Royal family, and politicians. On 6 July, British prime minister David Cameron announced that a special investigation commission would investigate the incident. Lord Justice Levesonas named chairman of the inquiry on 13 July with the mission to look into the phone hacking and police bribery whilst a separate inquiry was set up to establish and set up conventions for directing culture and ethics of the wider British media. The Judge also abolished existence of the Press Complaints Commission. These proceedings resulted in resignation of several prominent individuals foremost amongst whom were Dow Jones chief executive Les Hinton; News International legal manager Tom Crone; and chief executive Rebekah Brooks, whilst previous News of the World managing editor Andy Coulson, the former executive editor Neil Wallis, and CEO Rebekah Brooks were arrested. Murdoch and his son James were also arraigned before a parliamentary media committee (Davies, 2008).

The Murdoch incident influenced the U.S.A. In that the Federal Bureau of Investigation in that country launched its own investigation with the objective of ascertaining whether the United States News Corporation (that directs multiple national news channels) improperly interfered with the voicemails of victims of the 2001 terrorist attack and, in other ways performed incidents of phone hacking. This was followed by an inquiry later on in July into whether or not the company had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which includes bribing of police personnel (O'Carroll, 2011).

The Murdoch incident also impacted Australia in that the Australian Green party called for investigation into its own national News Corporation called News Limited (O'Carroll, 2011).

What ethical deficiency, (what did the Company lack-…i.e... check and balance system / no ethical policy etc.) or conflict that brought it about the unethical conduct?

Apparently, the non-existence of guidelines for media conduct instigated the incident. It was for this reason that Cameron decided to implement a separate committee for establishing and set ting up conventions for directing culture and ethics of the wider British media

3) How did the organizational leadership handle the dilemma? Did they report it right away, or did they hide it, ignore it etc.. Did they delay informing the public? Did they cooperate with the investigation?

Most of the prominent members resigned, but the organization as a whole cooperated. In other countries such as Australia and America, members of the specific and involved news corporations actively defended their innocence and protested investigations into their goings-on.

4) Propose a plan for implementing ethical standards and what should be the method(s) of communication of these standards in order to resolve the issue in the future.

The reputation of the wider world of journalism is involved here since the incident contradicts all that journalism is supposed to be (Heawood, 2011). Responsible journalism is supposed to educate the world and make it a better place by showcasing its problems. Instead, competition has caused the media to kneel to gossip mongering, corruption, manufacturing stories, and creating flaccid and oftentimes inaccurate news that is biased, and serves its own purpose (Straubhaar et al., 2010).