Rupert Murdoch: From Billionaire Media Mogul to Scandal-Hit Businessman - Essay Sample

Introduction

For over fifty years, Rupert Murdoch built one of the most successful medial conglomerates worldwide. Critics of his conduct have existed in the past. It was only recently that the bribery and phone hacking scandal brought the threat of massive legal action against himself and his companies. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation had a 168-year old British tabloid called News of the World. It gathered most of its exciting stories by illegally hacking the phones of individuals including members of the Royal family, celebrities, prime ministers and performers. In the process, they intercepted calls and listened to voice messages which they later covered up by giving bribes to investigators.

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There was conflict in the investigation of this case with the Scotland Yard and the police being at logger's heads and throwing accusations on each other. The police, together with royal protection officers, were bribed to allow News of the World to use the police Cell-phone tracking technology and to gain access to information on members of the royal family including the Green Book. These series of activities led to various individuals going to jail while others resigned and the final closure of News of the World on 10th July 2011.

Likeability of Rupert Murdoch Losing His Sight of News of the World’s Operations

The Murdoch Empire owned other media platforms including The Times of London, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, 20TH Century Fox, The Sunday Times, The New York Post, Fox Broadcasting, and Fox News. Rupert majorly used them as platforms to foster his pro-conservative, pro-business point of view. Murdoch also campaigned for various political aspirants including Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. He also used them to gain favors from celebrities. For example, it is when he asked Charlotte Church to sing at his wedding for a guarantee that she will give her a favorable coverage in his newspapers. With these, Rupert Murdoch could not concentrate on the News of the World and its activities. He was so much engrossed in growing his empire by making more of his contents read all over Europe, the United States, and the UK. After the surfacing of the bribery claims by the management of the paper, he often confessed that he had no idea of the transactions made (Hackett and Skinner, 33).

Acceptability of Phone Hacking

Hacking is both ethical and evil. Ethical hackers or white-hat hackers are hackers working for an organization with its full knowledge and mandate. They hack the systems of the company to identify weak points and provide solutions. Most of them work for computer security agencies (Hackett and Skinner, 35). However, some hackers do so with malicious intentions.

An example is the black-hat hackers who do so for personal gains and grey-hat hackers who are employed security consultants but once in a while; they breach the code of conduct for their benefits. The malicious hacker can either be a hobbyist who is learning to hack or hacktivist who is out for political activism. The Computer Security Act of 1987 has regulations that govern hacking activities.

Frequency of Phone Hacking in the Media and Its Justification in the Press

From the case study on the Murdoch Empire, it is clear that phone hacking is a common practice in the media industry. This ranges from phone call interception, breaching of emails, listening to voice messages, and reading text messages (Murdoch, 29)). This is done by media companies as investigative ways of gathering more information towards a story they are trying to come up with. This practice is unethical because it jeopardizes the privacy and security of an individual to the extent that the hacker can access bank account information and other details. Legal action is always taken in cases of unauthorized hacking.

Works Cited

Hackett, Robert A., and David Skinner. "Keeping The Fox At Bay". Television & New Media, vol 13, no. 1, 2011, pp. 31-36. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/1527476411425254.

Murdoch, Steven J. "Insecure By Design: Protocols For Encrypted Phone Calls". Computer, vol 49, no. 3, 2016, pp. 25-33. Institute Of Electrical And Electronics Engineers (IEEE), doi:10.1109/mc.2016.70.