Admit it -- you laughed

Okay, I'll admit it -- I'm sad that Rupert Murdoch shut down News of the World. A lot of journalists are now out of work in the U.K. -- and why? Because Murdoch hoped to buy a satellite network, which he didn't get anyway. And now the authorities in both London and Washington are launching investigations, and there will be more calls for press regulation (harder to do in this country, but still -- they'll try).

I can't defend what the Murdoch crew did, and I'm not going to try. But I like the piece in Gawker, which notes:

So what do you "regulate"? Voicemail hacking? It's already illegal. Snooping into bank accounts? Likewise. A clue for the sort of restrictions Coogan has in mind could be found in his exasperated response to McMullan's specious attempt to justify the phone snooping: "This guy sat outside my house! It's just a risible, deplorable profession." Well, yes: Listening in your voicemails is indeed risible and deplorable. But sitting outside your house? That doesn't quite cry out for regulation.

And Phil Bronstein (in another somewhat convoluted column) notes:

"A criminal enterprise inside a newsroom!" Foreman teased on CNN. The spicier newsrooms always felt a little that way. I remember when the best bookies in San Francisco were Chronicle/Examiner back shop page-layout people, and we loved them for it (and placed our bets).

Fuller said on CNN last week that, for tabs, there is a limit, and it is that they ought to "obey the law." But even the best reporters potentially break laws all the time. How many journalists have gone to jail for doing their job?

But let's put aside the finger-wagging and somber intonations about decaying morals and taste, which can be hypocritical. Rupert Murdoch's most luridly effervescent news property actually played an important role in our rollercoaster, adrenal-fatigue culture as a barometer of just how far we were willing to push the envelope.

Let's remember: Some of the biggest, most important stories of the last half-century have come from some sort of lawbreaking. The Pentagon Papers were stolen property, received by the New York Times. Wikileaks puts out illegally obtained information all the time. And in this electronic era, secrets don't last very well anyway.

I'm not for hacking into phones and most of us in this biz don't pay sources for information. (Buy them drinks, maybe, but I suppose that doesn't count. Or does it?) I'm not going to defend any of those tactics. Nor am I going to defend Murdoch's politics (or his scathing attacks on politicians who disagreed with him). But until recently, most of his targets were public figures -- wealthy and powerful ones.  

And the crazy tabs have a place in this world. I love the New York Post (who else would come up with the headline "PREMATURE EVACUATION" when Rep. Weiner resigned)? I guess I'm biased by the fact that I've never believed a lot of what I read, so I don't take this stuff too seriously -- and I worry about the people who do. But the world of journalism is a little smaller and a little less colorful after the death of News of the World.