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Stars and crime victims to talk in hacking probe
Source: Agencies |
November 21, 2011, Monday
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They have been hacked and libeled, stalked and slandered. Now the public figures whose personal lives have long offered grist for the UK's news mill have been given a rare chance to confront their tabloid tormentors.
Film star Hugh Grant, "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling, and the father of missing girl Madeleine McCann are among those due to testify over the next week at the inquiry into UK media ethics - a judicial body that could recommend sweeping changes to the way Britons get their news.
The nationally televised inquiry will give many of those in the public eye an unprecedented chance to challenge those who write about them, according to Cary Cooper, a professor at northern England's Lancaster University and the author of "Public Faces, Private Lives."
"This is the first time the celebrities have been able to strike back," he said. "I think it will have an impact, and the media might, for a while at least, pull away."
Speaking ahead of the testimony, victims' lawyer David Sherborne told the inquiry tales of shattered privacy, broken lives and even suicides stemming from media intrusion.
"When people talk of public interest in exposing the private lives of well-known people or those close to them, this is the real, brutally real impact which this kind of journalism has," Sherborne said.
The UK's media ethics probe was set up in the wake of the scandal over phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, which was closed in July after it became clear the tabloid had systematically broken the law. Most horrific was the news that the tabloid had hacked into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in its search for scoops.
Cooper acknowledged celebrities such as Grant or actress Sienna Miller - another star due to give evidence - have struggled for public sympathy when their privacy has been invaded. But he said their appearance alongside crime victims such as the Dowlers or Gerry -McCann could mark a shift in attitudes.
Film star Hugh Grant, "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling, and the father of missing girl Madeleine McCann are among those due to testify over the next week at the inquiry into UK media ethics - a judicial body that could recommend sweeping changes to the way Britons get their news.
The nationally televised inquiry will give many of those in the public eye an unprecedented chance to challenge those who write about them, according to Cary Cooper, a professor at northern England's Lancaster University and the author of "Public Faces, Private Lives."
"This is the first time the celebrities have been able to strike back," he said. "I think it will have an impact, and the media might, for a while at least, pull away."
Speaking ahead of the testimony, victims' lawyer David Sherborne told the inquiry tales of shattered privacy, broken lives and even suicides stemming from media intrusion.
"When people talk of public interest in exposing the private lives of well-known people or those close to them, this is the real, brutally real impact which this kind of journalism has," Sherborne said.
The UK's media ethics probe was set up in the wake of the scandal over phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, which was closed in July after it became clear the tabloid had systematically broken the law. Most horrific was the news that the tabloid had hacked into the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler in its search for scoops.
Cooper acknowledged celebrities such as Grant or actress Sienna Miller - another star due to give evidence - have struggled for public sympathy when their privacy has been invaded. But he said their appearance alongside crime victims such as the Dowlers or Gerry -McCann could mark a shift in attitudes.
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