Mal Fletcher comments

Mal Fletcher

Make no mistake about it; the News of the World saga carries implications for much more than the world of journalistic practice and culture.

The entire sorry episode started with fresh allegations about phone hacking and payments to police officers. It ended late last week with the announcement that News of the World would publish its final edition last Sunday.

The story flags a number of questions that have already received wide coverage in the media, domestically and abroad.

Have politicians enjoyed too cosy a relationship with leading news organisations? Have police personnel routinely received payments for information given to journalists? Did British police effectively sweep earlier allegations about phone hacking under the carpet, rather than running a thorough investigation?

There are, however, two important aspects to this story that have received little or no comment in the mainstream press and media.

The first involves the culture surrounding journalism in the UK and its standards of practice for news gathering.

Specifically, are the practices associated with gathering celebrity gossip - what I call, newslite - becoming part of the mainstream news culture?

Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator hired by News of the World, apparently had 4,000 names and personal phone numbers in his records, which were seized by police. These included the ex-directory phone details for politicians, sports administrators and celebrities.

The obvious question is how he managed to lay his hands on this sensitive, private information.

Perhaps less obvious is the question of whether an endemic culture of illegal data-trading is emerging within mainstream news houses generally. Are individuals within telecom companies regularly colluding with journalists to provide sensitive, personal information?

In the world of marketing, the practice of data-mining already allows advertising companies to build up lifestyle logs for potential consumers. It uses information drawn from maps of personal mobile phone usage and material people have entered into social networking sites.

In some instances, deep packet encryption software is also used on a commercial level to extract keywords from bulk email traffic. This data is fed to marketers who use it to draw up profiles for potential ad-targets.

Some employers and education facilities are now using data-mining techniques to help them identify their most suitable job or course applicants.

All of this is often done without the knowledge or consent of consumers whose data is being used. In law, this type of practice is something of a grey area as privacy regulation struggles to keep pace with rapid changes in potentially invasive technologies.