Phone hacking backfires: Sydney Smith writes that the News Of The World’s publisher continues to settle phone hacking claims seven years after the British newspaper shut down in a scandal that erupted over invasion of privacy and confidentiality.
The newspaper’s publisher “is still paying out and admitting to phone hacking allegations against it,” Smith writes.
Using a 2005 photo of a young woman posing in a British strip club was not an invasion of privacy, ruled the Independent Press Standards Organization.
Sydney Smith writes that IPSO found a news outlet may consider a voluntary action in the past fair game in the future.
The newspaper volunteered to take down the photo as a goodwill gesture and said it “understood that when one is young, one can make choices which are later regretted.”
Repeating a mistake is a mistake: Sydney Smith cites a British Independent Press Standards Organization ruling showing the dangers of printing a story from another news outlet.
The original story was an invasion of privacy, and so was republication of that story, said the U.K. press regulator.
“The fact that this material had been published by another newspaper was not sufficient to justify this intrusion in the public interest,” it said.
Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists 