BlogBelts.com

Ethics continuing education seems all the more necessary in today’s world, what with the continuing saga of the Rupert Murdoch/News of the World tabloid scandal. One of the most monied of patriarchs worldwide, Murdoch makes billions from a diverse portfolio of properties and investments, one of which is the legendary News of the World tabloid. A long-time money-maker for him, this property has now become his greatest challenge yet, both personally as well as professionally.

And so how does all that relate to the topic of ethics continuing education? Simply that some common decency would have helped prevent the scandal in the first place. It all started with a missing girl. As interest in her case grew, the tabloid sought to distinguish itself in the media scrum by gaining special insight into the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. What Murdoch’s News of the World did was hack into the girl’s mobile voicemail account.

The reason why this could have been prevented with ethics continuing education is on account of the destruction of evidence they engaged in by deleting voicemail messages to make room for new ones to listen in on! This created the impression to investigators that the girl was still alive, checking in and deleting old messages. Unfortunately, the girl had been long dead, and even more unfortunately for the News of the World, their hacking was soon found out.

Not even the royals and their prime minister were immune from Murdoch’s prying henchmen (and women)!

And now the paper’s been shut down by Murdoch in an apparent effort to appease an outraged public and even more outraged lawmakers, who have compelled him to testify before Parliament. Moreover, the tycoon has had the Sky Network acquisition fall through on account of intense concern over his control of the media!