# Are the British tabloids really THAT bad? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2020, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170 "2020-01-09T12:38:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2021, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170/41 "2021-04-22T13:00:42Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > But people don’t like to be that blamey towards someone they like, who’s dead. Generally no. But the last time I took driver’s education for a speeding ticket, the segment on the need to wear seat belts was a video about how Diana would have lived had she worn hers. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170/42 "2021-04-22T14:19:07Z")
Thanks for this, I had no idea. Apologies for repeating the story without checking up on the details. I was aware that in many cases, the journalists were able to access celebrities’ voicemail simply by knowing the phone number and guessing the password (which had often never been changed from the default ‘1234’ or ‘5555’). I don’t think it’s unfair to describe that as ‘hacking’ - OK, it wasn’t some complicated software manipulation, but it’s still damned unethical. If you choose to drive away someone else’s car without their permission, it’s still illegal even if they left the doors unlocked and engine running. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2021, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170/43 "2021-04-22T17:24:39Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > ‘hacking’ turned out to mean ‘using them in the normal way’ after having being told or guessing the pin number. But that in itself could be a criminal offence ([accessing a computer without authorisation](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1)). As the journalists should have been taught but evidently weren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170/44 "2021-04-22T22:23:15Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > guessing the password (which had often never been changed from the default ‘1234’ or ‘5555’). I don’t think it’s unfair to describe that as ‘hacking Or by bribing someone in the police or BT to supply the PIN. I do think that it’s unfair to call that ‘hacking’. Criminal, yes, but ‘hacking’ suggested that the system was actually secure, but for the advanced technical skills of the journalists, and that the journalists were doing something that your ex wasn’t also doing. Concealing the real lessons, which were that the system was actually insecure, and that the police and BT were corrupted. I agree that _now_, in the UK, people think that ‘hacking the phone system’ means just unauthorized use, but back then, when people wrote that journalists were ‘hacking the phone system’, they didn’t know that it was just the same thing as normal use by normal people. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2021, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170/45 "2021-04-22T22:59:54Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Here are two threads from the time. Read [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=615018) and then, when you think you know how bad things were, read [this](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=633290). > > And then decide just how bad the UK tabloid press is. The links above seem to have gone in the migration and I can’t remember what the first one was (probably a thread about the phone hacking scandal) but the second link was this: **[RO: News of the World Paul McMullan admits to being scum](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-news-of-the-world-paul-mcmullan-admits-to-being-scum/604698)** Worth reading as a reminder of just how vile the tabloid hacks can be. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2021, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170/46 "2021-05-23T02:21:06Z")
I don’t know if it’s getting any coverage in the USA, but in the UK people are pointing out that Princess Di didn’t have much in the way of security protection (from the media) at the time she died, and that was related to the fact that she thought they had been spying on her, and that was down to the fact that The BBC had forged documents showing that her security detail was spying her. And then covered it up for 25 years. And if it wasn’t for the cover up, she would have known before her death that the evidence that the family and her security detail were spying on her, had just been made up by a BBC journalist. Her kids are pretty pissed off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-british-tabloids-really-that-bad/846170.md?page=2)