Case Summary. News of the World was a tabloid that made a living out of underhanded reporting about celebrities and politicians. When the executives decided they wanted to close down the paper on July 7, 2011 chaos began to follow. This case involved and affected a wide range of people. The key decision makers were essentially Murdoch and the employees. They were the ones that decided to chase celebrities in cars, posed as a prostitute and so forth. They key stakeholders were the shareholders of the tabloid as the stock went down tremendously after July 7, 2011. The readers were also affected by the loss of the newspaper as there were over a million subscribers who would look forward to this tabloid.
Ethical Analysis. Rupert Murdoch and his employees were aware that an issue existed with the tactics they used to obtain information. The intensity of the issue may have felt smaller for the employees because of Murdoch’s approval. If the Police were in fact bribed, then the members of the police force that were involved would have a much higher level of moral awareness. Since Rupert Murdoch gave his employees the mind set of “do whatever it takes” it may persuade them to act unethically, while also rationalizing their actions. I strongly believe that his employees knew what they were doing was wrong. But I think situational pressures may have played a huge role in the actions that were taken. With a large amount of money to supply the employees with anything they needed to obtain the story it may have become hard for the employees to see past the cash and perks of working there. Also since the articles had to stay recent and keep on track with release dates there could also be pressure to find something to report on, no matter what the cost. With an authority figure such as a boss pushing you to pull as many underhanded tactics as needed it
