Lessons on the herd from News of the World

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Alex Batchelor writes on lessons in normative herd behaviour from News of the World.

Apologies for anyone not from the UK wondering what all the furore is about. It would appear that The News of the World, the largest tabloid Sunday paper, has crossed a line – a line it may not even have been aware existed.

The revelation that it had been going through the bins of celebrities for years appeared to have no significant impact – people throw things away and then they are fair game, seemed to be the view – and all the papers must have used this tactic, at one paper they even had an employee whose nickname was “BinMan”. Even the revelation that they had been hacking into the voicemail message boxes of various celebrities for years generated little real anger, there was a suspicion that not all papers were untainted by the practice – as so long as it continued to feed our desire to read celebrity exclusives maybe it was alright. Squidgygate and a few choice words from Prince Charles were among the most notorious early stories – but the practice clearly continued. More recently, a very belated criminal prosecution and a few apology payments to the celebrities involved seemed bring an end to the noise pretty quickly. Indeed if anything, the majority of the public has been supportive of the tabloid journalists ethos as revelations about Super Injunctions showed that an elite were trying to control what was published about them and where – particularly when their behaviour was likely to cost them money or reputation or both.

That support has all but disappeared now. Amid the hysteria (and apologies for not adding to the rants, not really my style) what actually interests me are the lessons in human behaviour. At NOTW we clearly have a group of people for whom, once the decision has been made to search bins and hack voicemails, there is a very small step to interfering in a murder investigation and listening to the voicemails of the victims and their families. They probably could not even see the line they were crossing and are now rather surprised, that having got away with all the other transgressions they are being held to account for these ones.

We are a herd species (cf Mark Earls) and our behaviour continues to be affected by those around us. Every now and then we come to our senses and manage to apply some moral compass to what is going on – however belatedly. The backlash is always powerful. This isn’t a parallel for Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa – but as groups we can look away when bad things happen for quite a long time.
This current story, however it plays out, is a lesson in group behaviour – and I will continue to refuse to believe any protestations about those in power at NOTW being completely unaware of the practice. I sometimes wondered how the details in these stories emerged. Being deeply naïve I suspected that most of the less salubrious details or comments from “friends” were simply made up – I now realise they almost certainly had a basis in fact. I cannot believe that the managers and professional journalists at those titles weren’t aware to some degree of how the facts on which the stories were based had been gathered.

Next time, as a marketer, or as a member of any group, you see something that you strongly believe is wrong, being perpetrated with a sketchy justification – how are you going to react?

Alex Batchelor, COO, BrainJuicer
Follow Alex on Twitter @alexbatchelor and join the big debate on Twitter #saynotonotw

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Posted: July 6th, 2011 | Author: elen.lewis | Filed under: Makes You Think, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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