THE NEW BLACK PLAGUE

I see from the papers that the disease is contagious---the Murdoch plague.

The news is dominated by the hacking scandals of the "News of the World", the tabloid that has for 143 years been Britain's largest tabloid. Now it is gone, but the scandal carries on. And, I note from the papers, Congress is proposing to investigate Rupert Murdoch and his Evil Empire---really the dark side.

Murdoch is not the first journalist baron to abuse the public. Remember Robert Maxwell, Lord Beaverbrook, Conrad Black and Randolph Hearst. Abuse of power goes with the territory. Journalism is a competitive game, and you are always seeking the competitive edge. The story justifies the means. How many old films have you seen where the reporter will do anything to get the story?

One prestigious lady journalist, now knighted, remembers her early days as a reporter when she was doing a story on a notorious man confined to a hospital. She naively went directly into the hospital and asked at the reception desk to see the patient and was, of course, refused. Then she saw several rival reporters dressed as hospital aides and one even as a doctor! So, tricks to get a story are nothing new.

But a total invasion of privacy by hacking phones and paying off cops to get confidential information is a form of rape, as far as I'm concerned. The F.B.I., I understand, is now checking out the possibility of hackers and the 9/11 victims.

I'm sure our skirts are no cleaner than the Brits, and Rupert Murdoch isn't the sole villain by any means. Before this nasty business is over, I predict there will be a plethora of villains on both sides of the Atlantic.

Murdoch is simply the worst example of what greed and power---they go together---can wreak in order to get what is wanted. We have too much of such abuse in positions of power in too many places. No, it's not a British disease, nor an American one, but all over the world, unfortunately.

And they haven't found the vaccine to cure it.