News of the World: 1843 - 2011

| Project Report # 2 |

| MGT 360: Business Ethics

Juhi Chanchalani@37073, School of Business and ManagementVarsha Phulwani@38178, School of Business and ManagementSafiya Said@35046, School of Business and ManagementUnder the supervision ofProf. Feroza AlleeDepartment of Management, School of Business and ManagementAmerican University of SharjahDecember 25, 2011Faking “News of the world”: 1843 - 2011 |

Executive Summary

Much of our focus in MGT 360 has been on the downfall of Enron, a major player in the finance industry from the 1980’s up until its collapse in 2001. Before Enron, the finance industry was subject to little regulation. However, the crash of Enron emphasized the importance of regulation and ethical financial practices like never before. In this project, we bring to you an analysis of the closure of the News of the World, the Enron of the world of journalism. Like Enron, News of the World was loved by the public (at one point it was the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world) but unethical journalistic practices such as phone hacking and bribery in an unregulated media environment led to its downfall and consequent shutdown in July 2011. We will explore the phone hacking scandal by journalists which led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper, and the wider ethical questions the scandal has raised regarding press regulation, media ownership, the police, and relationships between politicians and journalists.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 2

1. News of the World: An Overview 4

1.1. What was the News of the World? 4

1.2. Scandals involved with the News of the World 4

2. Ethical Issues Involved 5

2.1. Violation of the law 5

2.2. Invasion of privacy 6

2.3. Bribery and Corruption 6

2.4. Culture of bullying 7

2.5. Yellow journalism 7

3. Identifying the stakeholders 7

3.1. Victims of the phone-hacking 7

3.2. Employees of NoW 8

3.3. Readers of the NoW 9

3.4. Politicians 9...