Originally Posted by Damien

News International seem to be the company that have overstepped the mark on a consistent basis. They keep coming close to The Mirror but nothing substantive comes up whereas the Daily Mail seem to have avoided illegality and there isn't much of a question against the other papers.

Although the bribery case may ensnare other papers, all of them would have paid for a story before and it's a matter of when it becomes bribery or not. Paying a Police Officer for revealing information that would otherwise be private, cameras appearing at an arrest for example, is obviously beyond the mark but paying for a tip-off less so.

That broadsheet papers lose money is well known and depressing but I fail to see the relevance in a discussion about ethics. I bring this up not because of the quite you highlighted heero, I understand the point about subsidisation of The Times, but because numerous tabloid editors and reports have brought this up as a justification for their intrusion.