Peter Gabriel has lambasted Rupert Murdoch and News International recently, calling the PCC a "toothless poodle", saying the police’s relationship to Fleet Street appeared "totally corrupt" and slamming the NOTW’s actions as, "the lowest forms of human behaviour".
Gabriel, whose New Blood Live In London 3D will be shown at various UK cinemas across the UK on Sunday, September 11 was speaking to The Stool Pigeon for an interview which will run in full on The Quietus, during September.
Speaking about the hacking scandal he said: "Sensationalism sells. We’ve just got ourselves into an absurd situation…
"We’d basically gotten ourselves into an impasse where our existing systems could not deal with these issues. The heads of all the major political parties believed they could not get elected without the support of the Murdoch newspapers. The PCC is a toothless poodle, without any real powers that never does anything effective against press intrusion. The police relationship to these newspapers seems totally corrupt.
"Intrusiveness was taken for granted, regardless whether you think celebrities should be in the media or not. There were absolutely no moral qualms from anywhere. Information was to be gathered by whatever means. And this had to come to an end.
"To me journalism encompasses the highest attributes of human behaviour. There are people going out all over the world, even though they know their lives are at risk every day to investigate the truth on a daily basis and also the lowest forms of human behaviour such as we’ve seen here on the Murdoch papers.
"They don’t give a shit about any suffering that other people are going through, as long as they get paid for that information, they will do it.
"But basically there needs to be a platform of privacy that can be protected by an independent ombudsman of some kind. They could, of course, work in the opposite direction and free up information when it was in the public interest. This phrase, as has been said before, does not mean what the public are interested in. These things are totally different. And if you let the press loose on that, there will be no morality and no privacy.
"The big picture is that in some ways privacy belongs to the last century and we’d better get used to it. But when there’s no right to justice or no right to the truth and no means of exposing injustice, or when injustice is uncovered but there is no one to publish the story, then we have real problems. And until we come up with some alternative political system, we have to rely on brave individuals – it was someone from the Guardian this time – or accidental exposure to protect us. And that’s not good enough."
Peter Gabriel’s New Blood Live In London 3D will be showcased as an exclusive event showing in selected Vue, Showcase, Apollo and Empire cinemas across the UK on Sunday, September 11th and Thursday, September 15th and offers fans an un-missable opportunity to experience his unique musical vision.
The show, filmed at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, earlier this year features stunning orchestral reworkings of his back catalogue including such songs as ‘San Jacinto’, ‘Intruder’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’.
The album New Blood will be released in October and will be trailed by an in depth interview on The Quietus.
