The News International Scandal and the Rights of Journalism

11th Oct 2011; 18:00

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RSA / Reuters Institute Debate

The phone hacking at the 'News of the World' - and more broadly – showed how desperate and driven was the search by popular newspapers in the UK for exclusive information on the private lives, both of the famous and of ordinary people caught up in a media frenzy.  

But the transparency demanded by the news media has been served in various ways – in part through the adoption of Freedom of Information legislation, in part through the huge increase of the exchange of personal details and news through social media, and in part through the leaking of secret information, in which Wikileaks has played the highest profile role and poses the largest challenge to authority at every level.   

John Lloyd’s new publication Scandal reveals the nature of one of the major trends of our time, and tells the stories of those laying down the lines of its development.  

John Lloyd is joined at the RSA by Bruce Page and Matthew Taylor to reflect on the lessons of the News International affair, to debate the current crisis in UK news media and to ask: is it time to re-assert journalism’s ethical and civic purpose?

Speakers: John Lloyd, director of Journalism, the Reuters Institute, a contributing editor, the Financial Times and director, the Axess Programme on Journalism and Democracy; Matthew Taylor, chief executive, the RSA; Bruce Page, investigative journalist and author of The Murdoch Archipelago.

In association with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

Suggested hashtag for Twitter users: #RSAReuters

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Scandal! News International and the Rights of Journalism
John Lloyd, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

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