For years, Rupert Murdoch's empire of tabloid newspapers hacked into private phone messages and voicemails for content to gossip about. Scandals such as the Milly Dowler case raised huge outcry by the public. Murdoch's tabloids erased messages from the kidnapping victim's phone, leading her parents to believe the misconception that she was still alive. The closure of the News of the World should have signalled the end of such invasions of privacy, but the act itself did not deal with the real issues and it is arguable whether the correct perpetrators have now been brought to justice.
Lord Justice Leveson's report has faced masses of criticism claiming that the Inquiry and the Report produced have left members of the press and victims dissatisfied. During the post-Leveson period, many now question how the Leveson Inquiry actually affected the culture, practice and ethics of the press.
The relevance of the Leveson Inquiry in protecting privacy and curtailing arguably excessive behaviour of the press should be questioned; its territory appears to be narrow and outdated. Are the Twitter ramblings of (sometimes) freelance journalists who have affiliation with 'the national press' included in its scope, or was the Inquiry simply analysing the practice of conventional journalists working for well-known newspapers? The press of the 21st century, however, seems to take in the form of social platforms; through realms such as, blogging software and the 'hidden corners' of the internet. It is important to note that the world of media appears to be entering a new age where ethics regarding the public interest are going to change and continue to do so further into the future.
This is not to say that those victims who were affected by the invasions of privacy that occurred, should not receive suitable redress. It appears that many of those who were affected, now feel at a loss to why so much money (£5,442,400) was spent on a way to find a solution, yet they are continuously expected to live contently with the damaging experiences forever. In addition to this, the inquiry did not effectively provide victims, or the rest of the public for that matter, with any information regarding the ways in which phone-hacking may occur and how to take preventative measures against it. I, personally, was not aware of how easy it is to hack a person's voicemail service until very recently. So how can the government and the press expect an average person to assist in preventing such atrocities from happening again?
Prime Minister David Cameron said only a new media regulatory system and a full inquiry into what went wrong with News of the World and beyond would meet public demand. However, we are now 2 years on from the Leveson report and neither has the public increased its trust in the media, nor is the press happy with its self-regulatory system.
Freedom of speech and the right to respect private life still maintain a battle.
"The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power." - Malcolm X
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