英语Shock dodgy behaviour is widespread in tabloid newsrooms.docVIP

Shock: dodgy behaviour is widespread in tabloid newsrooms Sep 9th 2010, 10:28 by Bagehot AND so it goes on. Still more witnesses are popping out of the tabloid woodwork to say it is inconceivable that Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World who is now David Camerons top press adviser, did not know that illegal hacking into mobile telephone messages was endemic in his newsroom. Listen to Tory loyalists and they will tell you that this is a nakedly partisan smear campaign by Labour politicians and their sympathisers in the press, who (a) want a government scalp and (b) hate Mr Coulsons ex-proprietor Rupert Murdoch. I am sure a lot of this is about partisan politics: it is, after all, the job of the opposition to oppose. I am also sure that a lot of journalists at the papers leading with (把...作为头条新闻或重要报导) this story, the Guardian and the Independent, think that Mr Murdoch wields (支配掌握) too much power in the political life of this country. But I think political types are failing to understand the psychology that underpins（加强，巩固） this latest revival of what is now a three year old story. For quite a lot of journalists with experience of a daily newsroom, the defence mounted by Mr Coulson—that illegal phone hacking was the work of a single rogue （歹徒；流氓；骗子）reporter, the royal editor Clive Goodman, who concealed his actions from his editors—is a bit implausible（难以相信的，不像真实的）. And if there is one thing that drives reporters into a terrier（小猎犬）-like frenzy（狂暴，狂怒） (ok, along with the prospect of food and drink on expenses) it is the belief that someone is being less than frank with them, especially in a manner that they feel insults their intelligence. For Conservatives who see Mr Coulson as a valuable member of their leaderships inner circle, the fact that the press keeps returning to this story again and again is evidence of the shallow, shrill （刺耳的；声音尖锐的，抱怨的；不平的）partisan nature of the British media. I am not sure it feels like that from the point of view o