Get your attention? That is a tabloid headline. It's also true. The last few weeks revealed a shocking story that has uncovered widespread treachery. We witnessed dramatic shutdowns of newspapers, arrests of key figures, seizure of records, metro police and Scotland Yard officials stepping down, heads of governments accused of courting corruption, illegal phone and email hacking, planted listening devices, grieving families stalked, celebrities hacked in retaliation or in effigy, verbal wars, transatlantic Twitter fights, convoluted liaisons and incestuous abuses of power.
These "black ops" are not machinations of national security, but of contemporary media and how its' business is conducted. The Murdoch scandal shines a light on something so out of control for so long but hardly noticeable because it's so tightly woven into the fabric of modern culture as to be invisible. Does nobody remember when reporter Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America?" People intuit that this story and investigation has only scratched the surface and is far from over while those in the glare of its scrutiny hope the storm of indignation has subsided from a public's notoriously short attention span. But a still deeper revelation awaits yet unexamined, under the surface dirt being swept away.
"We can't see the forest because the trees are so loud!" There's another headline designed to startle and grab attention but for a different purpose; it's a koan. A koan, instead of telling you what to think, provokes you to -- think. Here's another: As the underhand is revealed does the underbelly go unnoticed?
Maybe the real story is that the real story is buried beneath the real story. What exactly is noble about using electronic eavesdropping for: invading personal lives; ambushing people in interviews; celebrity surveillance; breaking into confidential medical records; exposing private family conversations; herding public opinion all the while shouting "this is in the public interest" to conceal the real agenda -- power and bullying? In fact what is noble about it without the electronics?
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-barbara-kaufmann/shocking-secrets-revealed_b_924555.html