Reason Why Newspapers Matter…#318
Could a blogger have done this?
No.
Would this story have broke without a newspaper in business to continue the daily hard labor of investigating and reporting?
No.
At another level, it is a story of a newspaper, The Telegraph, which broke with a reputation as a stuffy publication favored by retired army colonels and blue-rinsed widows to seize what has turned out to be one of Britain’s greatest scoops. As it has done so, it has stolen a march on its rivals in an overcrowded market where vanishing profits have intensified an already brutal rivalry.
The Telegraph’s editors, with daily banner headlines pummeling members of Parliament like a boxer raining blows on a helpless opponent, have declined to comment on reports that they paid about $140,000 for computerized disks containing more than a million individual expense claims by members of Parliament over the past over the past four years. An unidentified whistleblower is said to have approached at least one of The Telegraph’s rival publications, The Times of London, with an initial demand for $380,000.
The timing of the scandal has played its part in fostering a public outcry with few precedents in parliamentary history. With Britain mired in its deepest recession since the 1930s, and tens of thousands losing jobs every month, it is hard to imagine a less auspicious moment, for the parliamentarians, to have their expenses exposed to public scrutiny.
In response, they have made groveling apologies, waved reimbursement checks before television cameras and pledged to restore “respect for Parliament.”
For the time being, the scandal has overwhelmed every other story in Britain’s media. The country’s main television news channels offer live coverage of every twist and turn, while members of Parliament with dubious expense claims elbow their way past television crews and newspaper reporters mounting vigils outside their homes. Almost every hour brings new attempts to save careers with hand-on-heart apologies, tortuous explanations and promises of unrelenting modesty in future claims on the public purse.
