After 168 years of titillating Britons over breakfast, the News of the World has closed. Last Sunday's edition was the tabloid's last. Allegations of police bribery and phone tapping by Britain's best-selling newspaper were met with public outrage. But are these revelations really so surprising?
It is repugnant, but hardly surprising, that the News of the World asked a private investigator to hack into mobile-phones — including those belonging to the families of terrorism victims, dead soldiers and murdered schoolgirls. Rupert Murdoch's best-selling tabloid has long been drunk on its own power. But blame for the loutish culture of British's popular press does not rest with the media alone.
If the press have ended up in the gutter, it is because we are all there with them, politicians and public alike. Reporters tap phones because readers want to hear the private conversations of those in the public eye. Press regulation and privacy protection remain weak because politicians are more concerned with courting the favor of media tycoons whose support they want during elections.