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Comment by throw46365 | Hacker News Reader

It does not go for all British papers at all. Not even all of the nationals.

Probably most of the tabloids though.

The Guardian, The Observer, the FT, the Independent, and some of the significant regionals (Manchester Evening News, Brighton Argus, Oxford Mail, the Scotsman, the Belfast Telegraph etc.) have much better reputations.

I doubt there is a news publication in the world that has escaped having a toxic newsroom at least at some point.

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Of the ones above, the FT is perhaps the only respectable one that I can speak of; Liz Truss claiming it is a left wing publication is still hilarious. But have you read the Manchester Evening News lately? The Guardian too has diminished enormously in quality in recent years IMO. For me, the definition of toxic also encompasses the purpose of their work, not just how it is carried out. Newspaper journalists now seem consumed by driving up engagement metrics for particular audience segments and that seems pretty steady across most of the UK news media right now. There are some promising signs of change with new outlets like the Byline Times but the more established media is absolutely inbred and rotten (and dying, if you look at their audience metrics).

Print news is dying because of the internet; this isn't news.

But we're talking about the most fundamental questions of journalistic ethics here.

The Murdoch media -- in particular the News Of The World -- hacked people's phones (including a missing teenager's phone, deleting voicemails and giving her family and the police false evidence she was alive), spied on people, and colluded with a series of corrupt police. And on really an epic scale.

The News Of The World was little more than a criminal enterprise, and essentially everyone in News International leadership knew it.

Even the (utterly loathsome, morally corrosive) Daily Mail is a beacon of truth by comparison.

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