1. For my invasion of privacy story I have chosen to do the phone hacking scandal which happened in
2006-2007. The news of the world and a private investigator were convicted of intercepting
voicemail messages. This caused an outrage amongst the public and the media and put all other
newspapers in the firing line. A critical point in the case came when the Guardian newspaper
reported that the news of the world hacked the mobile phone belonging to murdered schoolgirl
Milley Dowler. This once again caused a massive uproar and made a lot of celebrities question if
their mobile phone had been hacked.
The story at the time became a story of prioritydue to the fact the family of the Milley Dowler were
greatly upset by the situation, finding out that their daughter’s privacy had been invaded and there
was nothing she could have done about it. It also became a story of priority because the police also
found out that many other phones were hacked including celebrities. Over 4000 were identified as
victims of the phone hacking scandal which also promoted the story itself making every question if
they had been hacked. Politicians and murder victim’s phones were also hacked causing outrage
throughout Britain. The story was that prioritised that the prime minister described the situation as
“Truly dreadful”.
The immediacy of the story wouldn’t be that big in a sense the story wouldn’t really be ‘breaking
news’. Newspapers would normally have to publish the story the day after the event actually
happened and make it second page news until the case developed further. However most
newspapers have their own social media website such as the daily mail who has their own website
where you can read story’s at any times. The daily mail always update their website with any type of
news that they find out.
During the time many follow up stories came about such as if they newspaper hacked celebrities’
phones then what’s to say they didn’t hack the publics. This once again caused controversy amongst
the public also making them paranoid. This encouraged other newspapers to make assumptions
about the News of the world, producing headlines to scare the public and to make them more
paranoid and scared. This was also a good way to advertise the story more due to the act it also
applies to the public so more people are going to be involved. Many celebrities also because a follow
up story questioning whether the news of the world
Due to the story being so important and popular throughout Britain availability of audio was much
required. As I have mentioned before a quote from the prime minister was taking saying “truly
dreadful” which amplified the situation even more. The prime minister giving a short and snappy
comment like that really triggered the public’s emotions and showed them how dreadful the
situation actually is. May celebrity statements were also taken such as the one from Huge Grant
“There has been a section of our press that has become allowed to become toxic over the last 20 or
something years and its main tactic is by bullying and intermediation and blackmail”. This is a very
emotional piece of audio showing the frustration and anger from a very respectable actor. This
would trigger people’s emotions making them feel sorry for him that he’s gone through something
like this.
Different radio stations will have different newsroom policy’s in order to get the story a across. A lot
of radio stations and news stations will care more about the ratings then they would offended
someone. Radio stations such as Capital and Key 103 would more likely broadcast a story like this

2. due to the fact their target audience are older teenagers to young adults who tend to use their
phone more than other people.
This story is mainly a public interest story more than a human interest due to the fact the story does
apply to the public because their phones could also have been hacked. However it’s not news that us
as human need to know about and it’s not that likely that we were affected by the hacking scandal.
Also a lot of the older generation won’t be interested in the story due to the fact the don’t really use
mobile phones so won’t see the attracting to the story.
Overall I think the phone hacking scandal was a very horrible thing for the news of the world to do
especially for the murder school girl Milley Dowler. However even though I think that celebrities
should moan about all the non-privacy they don’t receive I think hacking their phones was a step too
far. I think what celebrities text is up to them and that its none of our business in other words we
wouldn’t like it if someone hacked our phone and saw everything we were saying. Therefore I think
it’s a step too far.