What the Guardian is 'crusading" about is a not an isolated example of a moral choice to expose a greater wrong but a studied policy of willful law-breaking to stir up some salacious gossip. Mr O'Neill should engage his brain before he puts his pen in gear

Posted by barton keys at 10:38am on July 15, 2009

So Brendan thinks it's ok for journalists to break the law. I wonder if this is because he's been up to exactly the same [illegal] activities himself. What a ludicrous article, the News of the Screws, as it's been referred to for years due to its concentration on sleaze, is interested in digging dirt, not investigative journalism, and let's not forget who owns it, Murdoch, the biggest and most powerful media mogul in the world. What O'Neill is defending is the sytematic snooping of people's private phones and voicemail, and I for one don't care if they are celebrities, they also have the right to privacy. The Guardian does investigative journalism, unlike the News of the World which digs dirt. This is an example in fact, and it must have taken a lot of work to get to the facts. That the editor, who claims not to have been aware of anything criminal taking place [so he's either lying or inept as an editor] is now the media advisor to the leader of the conservative party, is another angle that needs exposing; he could be very powerful in a year's time if the tories win the election. This is quite the silliest article O'Neill has written so far, among as plethora of silly articles.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:54am on July 15, 2009

Who in the world outside of journalism says the Public have a right to know? I would have thought that from the well known point that media reports are invariably inaccurate it would be as well to ignore that suggested right. Dr Goebbels the Nazi arch propaganda followed the principle the Press is not to inform, but to persuade. How many good people in all walks of life have been ruined by an unproven or inaccurate tale?

Posted by John Stanton at 12:24pm on July 15, 2009

It's a fact people break the law on a daily basis, they don't get caught, they don't get punished. If you get caught speeding, not paying tax, drawing benefit illegally, then you can expect to be penalised. If the News of the World has been caught and they are found guilty, then they should expect penalties like anyone else. It's warped logic to champion the News of the World and denounce The Guardian - at least, not on this issue. N.O.W got caught.

Posted by nick at 12:45pm on July 15, 2009

I believe you're mixing press freedom to report with press freedom to do what the average citizen can not do because it's illegal. Also you're mixing different issues, the UK has become a state that controls its citizens, with DNA databases, with the RIP act, CCTV surveillance cameras - here on another Country in Europe, it's easy to see that England has become the literal metaphor for Huxley/Orwell visions of a future society. That is a real problem, but one that the British Citizens need to handle before it's too late - or maybe it's already too late? Back to the press freedom issues, it's also true that the tabloid press, and even respected newspapers instead of doing investigative journalism use copy/paste techniques and illegal subterfuges to present scoops; majority of English journalists do not respect any deontological code or ethics; the PCC as a tool to self regulate the press is pathetic, and even the Culture, Media and Sport Committee are easily fooled. All in all, no it's not right for NoW journalists to hack phones, and the Guardian was right in exposing the story - the tactics used in NoW are common among the media outlets owned by Murdoch News Corporation, and Murdoch should be accountable and pay for the way he continues to annihilate the readers confidence in the media.

Posted by Joana Morais at 3:25pm on July 15, 2009

How sad that, if these comments are remotely representative, the people of this country are less bothered by evermore government control, regulation and intrusion into our lives than a few journalists snooping into spoilt celebrities affairs. Our press is a fading shadow of its former self, struggling to survive as advertsing and customers migrate to the net while libel, privacy, incitement and streams of EU rules continue to constrain what its permissable to say. How easy for the loss-making subsidised Guardian to rail against the UK's best selling newspaper for how it goes about trying to get the sordid scoops that sustain those sales. The public want their sunday sleaze stories yet they hypocritically express outrage at methods used to get them. Under Peter Preston, the Guardian was an outstanding paper, willing to take risks to expose wrongdoing, culminating in that editor losing his job over a relatively trivial "crime" in the course of exposing Tory sleaze. The resulting libel case was a close run thing, the Guardian getting the evidence it needed to expose it's accuser's lies very late in the day. Preston'e successor as editor still reigns today, but that case, coming so early in his time as boss, left a mark of caution on him. His Guardian has often adopted a haughty attitude towards the tabloids, suporting privacy laws and other proposals that, while attempting to address kiss and tell and all that stuff, would also have harmed serious investigative journalism. Just as freedom of speech requres that we defend the right of speech for those who's views we may loathe, press freedom demands that we support the right of the News of the World to dig for celebrity dirt. The Guardian's editor has long given the impression that he would sacrifice that precious, ever-diminishing freedom to investigate serious stuff in order to get one over on the tabloid "gutter-press". To see the press turn against each other like this while the privileged power-elite laugh at their enfeeblement is sad.

Posted by Harlan Leyside at 8:37pm on July 15, 2009

The author seems to compare the work of, for example, investigative journalist Manifold, to the snooping of NoW journalists. There is a difference between exposing widespread corruption in the police and exposing the private life of some unfortunate celebrity! It is too simple to apply the principle that if one journalist breaks the law for one purpose, then all journalists should be allowed to break the law for any purpose at all. This article, however, does so, to its detriment.

Posted by Katy Docherty at 12:59am on July 16, 2009

Quite so.

Posted by A. Headhunter at 1:26am on July 18, 2009