Journalist or Gossip Monger?

Yeah, I know, most people know a bit about the whole mess that the Murdoch paper and the press in the U.K. got into. Yes, I know there are actually tutorials on how to “hack” into cell phones and get the messages. Yes, I know, there are some people who DO have ethics and used those to get the story.
What is amazing to me is the thirst in the public for stupidity. Who cares if someone has been seen wearing a bikini on a beach? Who cares if someone is seen drinking at a bar? I don’t really give a damn if anyone is doing either of these.
Now, when it comes to things like using false identity to get into financial information, which is not my business, nor anyone else’s, or the health situation of a young child, or the family of someone who is desperate to find a child, a spouse, an elder, or anyone that is a friend, then there is trouble, big, ugly trouble. THAT is NOT journalism. That is abusing a lot of the information most GOOD journalists use honestly to get beyond honesty, integrity and go totally sleaze. Yes, there are some in high places that abuse their influence, and some very good journalists have found those out, but now it seems that even the “yellow” or gossip journalists find they have to go way down to beyond the gutter to make a pound, dollar, yen and survive.
Why should I even care about any of this? I am certainly less than famous, I am certainly not one of the so-called “elite”, nor am I even in the field of entertainment. So, why care?
I have a family, and if any of my own family is harmed, then I am going to try to communicate with them, in the desperate hope I can change the outcome. I WANT to see those family members again, alive, without any harm. When I see a so-called journalist cutting into the messages, cutting into the grief, cutting me and my family while making money off that, then I am going to see this for what it really is, a human hyena feeding off death.
The irony is that it was a journalist and his editor that got the facts, got near the bottom of this mess, and exposed this pack of filth. Is this the end? Not by a very very LONG shot. When the journalist, who had a strong and equally determined editor at his back, published the first in the series of stories, the Murdoch organization attacked, ferociously! Lies piled on lies and more attacks from not just one paper but every single damn paper and television organization that Murdoch was part of. Gang bullying! This is continuing now, even as I put pixels on a screen. More lies. Rupert Murdoch DID know about this, sanctioned a huge payment to the person wronged and then lied again to the British Parliamentary inquiry. So did his son.
I watched the inquiry and was astounded to see Rupert Murdoch say he was proud of his own father for “revealing” a scandal. Wonder if he is proud to be the center of just such a revelation himself? What is the astounding part is that Rupert Murdoch was proud of having an empire that was the bottom feeder and used illegal and obscene methods to get to some things that only caused others torching, searing, soul-scarring pain, and then comes forward to say he is “humbled”? Give me a break!
There is another place that I would put a bet on for using “cell phone cutting” and is nothing more than a bottom feeder itself, and that place is owned by Time Warner. Scandal! Oh wow! Divorces! Oh wow! “She said this!!” and all on American television. Who really gives a damn whether someone is getting into a really nasty contest in a divorce? Those people obviously have not been able to deal with emotional maturity for a while, so why get paid to exploit this?
Well, the fault lines are coming to life. Human beings, who have the emotional maturity of a two year old child love to snicker, grin, read all about other lives and feel somehow “better” because the situations are not happening in the lives of the readers. Yes, the hyenas are feeding YOU, and you are gullible enough to think this has some truth to it.
ENOUGH!!!
Good journalism gives us a picture of our world, with facts that ARE verified, images that ARE real, not doctored, not “enhanced with airbrushing” and often turn our stomachs with the real pain. Good journalism gets stubborn, gets determined, gets the story, BUT without manufacturing information, creating falsehoods and without causing someone to question all journalists. There are some television networks that have long ceased to be truthful, ethical, and they show it. Opinion is the means to “verify” as opposed to doing the actual work to find facts, to work, really work to get the story right.
We now live in a world that is losing sight of what it means to be human, to live up to the best in ourselves, to be honest, not only with others, but with ourselves. We don’t expect others to behave ethically or even morally, but to be the worst!
ENOUGH!!
Hackers are not those who “intercept or cut into phone cell messages”, they are people who have more excuses than pairs of socks. Hackers want to “change the world” but do it by causing harm, being obnoxious and using their knowledge to create problems for others.
ENOUGH!
I will NOT revere or honour anyone who uses “yellow journalism”, hacking or other means to become “famous for fifteen minutes”! But, I will honour that man who persevered despite the spiteful attacks by the entire Murdoch chain, the bullying of all those papers and television stations, and kept going to get the facts, get the entire picture to that date, and then put out that story, knowing all hell would break loose.
When I see the television show from Time Warner about to start on my own small television, I shut my television off or I find a channel where the truth actually appears, with facts and honest journalism used. I do NOT want any hyena food here, nor do I even want to be near such stinking, rotting, fecal matter in my life, online or otherwise.