Wednesday, July 06, 2011

The fault line between Mammon and Morality has been cruelly revealed this week.

Even for a newspaper as synonymous with scandal, skulduggery and controversy, hacking into the voicemails of a murdered schoolgirl, has to be the worst thing the News of the World has done. Ever.

Nor does it stop there, wicked enough as that it is. More is being exposed by the minute.

The desire, the madness in fact, for profit, for bylines, for that inch further than the competition can reach, has fanned this immorality.

Aided and abetted by vile self-regarding newsroom braggadocio - some of those responsible regarded themselves as "Princes of Darkness" completely untouchable, beholden to no one. Able to do whatever they wanted and to revel in it.

It is as amazing, as it hideous, as it is heartbreaking for the victims. How could they? Employee behaviour takes it's steer from the management in every company I've worked at. Don't tell me it was rogue individuals flying under the radar here. Impossible.

What compounds the horror is that the News of the World's tentacles have extended into the Police now. There's a sense to me of veiled threats left by this newspaper for anyone daring to say no to this monster. Don't think about it, or if you do, expect the banner headline equivalent of a severed horse's head on Sunday. This is mafia newpaper ethics.

Unforgivable. But will Cameron actually do anything, other than mouth outrage?

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