UK Law Enforcement Demanding Guardian's Sources On News Of The World Hacking Scandal [Updated]

from the journalist-shields? dept

There's been a growing attack on the right of journalists to keep their sources secret. In the US, we've seen attempts to expose newspaper sources using the Espionage Act, and it appears that over in the UK something similar is happening. Scotland Yard is apparently demanding that The Guardian reveal its sources for its thorough and widespread reporting on the News of the World phone hacking scandal. This would be the same UK law enforcement folks who were alerted to the phone hacking and chose to ignore it... while The Guardian pushed on doing the reporting to expose it. To then pressure The Guardian to give up its sources certainly has the feeling of attacking the guys who exposed Scotland Yard's failures in investigating News of the World earlier... Update: Looks like the press attention to this story has caused Scotland Yard to back down. Still, it seems like this could create serious chilling effects for UK press.

Filed Under: journalism, news of the world, protection, rupert murdoch, scotland yard, shield
Companies: news corp.

WSJ's Defense Of News Of The World: Hey, It's Not Like They Published Wikileaks Secrets

from the uh-what? dept

Lots of folks are pointing out the ridiculousness of a new editorial in the WSJ defending News Corp. (the owner of the WSJ) in the ongoing hacking debacle. Basically, it defends everything about News Corp. and its actions with a tiny nod to the fact that phone hacking is illegal at the beginning and at the end of the piece, but, even then, it tries to pin the blame on UK law enforcement rather than News Corps.' own actions:

Phone-hacking is illegal, and it is up to British authorities to enforce their laws. If Scotland Yard failed to do so adequately when the hacking was first uncovered several years ago, then that is more troubling than the hacking itself.

Uh, yeah. What struck me as even more ridiculous was the editorial's attempt to mock other publications for talking about this by noting that some of those publications (they're mainly talking about The Guardian, who has been the main force driving the phone hacking story for the past few years) worked with Julian Assange and Wikileaks:

The Schadenfreude is so thick you can't cut it with a chainsaw. Especially redolent are lectures about journalistic standards from publications that give Julian Assange and WikiLeaks their moral imprimatur.

Let's see. One involves getting whistleblowers to expose corporate and government malfeasance... and one involved hacking into the phone of a dead girl and erasing messages, throwing off the investigation and giving her family hope. Sure, I can see how there's a moral equivalence there...

Does the editorial board at the WSJ really believe that the public is so stupid as to think that the two things are even remotely equivalent? And if so, why is it that the WSJ set up its own Wikileaks-competitor, with much weaker security and promises to protect identities?

It's a sad day when the Wall Street Journal admits it can't tell the difference between whistleblowing and reporters hacking into personal voicemails and then paying off police and others about it.

Filed Under: news of the world, phone hacking, rupert murdoch, wall street journal
Companies: news corp.

News Of The World Staffers Take Parting Shot At Management In Final Crossword Puzzle

from the parting-shots dept

With the closure of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, due to the ongoing criminal investigations and revelations of highly questionable practices involving spying on private citizens and hacking into their voicemails, many people did wonder if the staff would have any sort of message for their bosses in the final edition. Apparently former editor Rebekah Brooks was adamant that staffers not mock them in the final edition, but she failed:

"Rebekah tried everything to stop the staff having the last word and she utterly failed.

"She brought in two very senior Sun journalists to go though every line on every page with a fine tooth comb to ensure there were no libels or any hidden mocking messages of the chief executive.

"But they failed and we’ve had the last laugh.’

How? They hid it in the puzzles section. Apparently, a bunch of clues for the various puzzles were not-so-subtle references to the whole thing, including "criminal enterprise," "catastrophe," "stench," and "racket."

Filed Under: crossword, news of the world, rebekah brooks
Companies: news corp.

Murdochs' Latest Attempt At Crisis Control: Kill Off News Of The World

from the wipe-hands,-problem-solved dept

Apparently all the negative stories about questionable (and potentially criminal) activities by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, and various advertisers pulling out of supporting the tabloid, have resulted in the Murdoch Family/News Corp. deciding to pull the plug entirely on the newspaper as of Sunday. The crisis control includes finally admitting that the problem was much wider and deeper than the company had claimed earlier. James Murdoch put out a statement, in which he also confirmed that he had tried paying off the victims of News of the World's phone hacking/spying:

Murdoch told employees at the 168-year old title: "The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed to when it came to itself".

Murdoch said in a statement: "Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued."

Murdoch also conceded the company had "made statements to parliament without being in full possession of the facts. This was wrong".

He said "the News of the World and News International wrongly maintained that these issues were confined to one reporter" but that was untrue, and that the company had passed information to the police which would demonstrate this.

"Those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences," he said.

Murdoch also said in his statement to staff that he had authorised out-of-court payments to victims of hacking and that: "I now know that I did not have a complete picture when I did so."

He added: "That was wrong and is a matter of serious regret."

While it's good to see the Murdochs finally willing to address the mess head on, it also shows just how bad things are that they couldn't keep trying to brush the whole thing aside as one or two rogue employees.

Filed Under: james murdoch, news of the world, rupert murdoch
Companies: news corp.

Murdoch Phone Hacking Story Just Gets Worse And Worse

from the rupert-running-for-cover dept

Following the reports that employees for Rupert Murdoch's UK tabloid "News of the World" hadn't just hacked into the voicemails of politicians and celebrities, but also those of a murdered teenager (in which they supposedly deleted some message, leading to false hope that the girl was still alive), now come reports that News of the World hacked into the voicemails of the families of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On top of that, it's also come out that the former editor of the paper, Rebekah Brooks was allegedly warned by Scotland Yard about possible illegal spying taking place via the paper's resources. In that case, she was warned that a reporter was helping two murder suspects spy on the detective investigating them. In other words, we're getting way past just hacking into voicemails and into interfering with police investigations.

Not surprisingly, the Murdoch family is in full-on crisis mode. Advertisers are bailing on the paper, the Murdochs' relationships with top politicians in the UK are being scrutinized and it seems likely that this is one scandal that won't be easily brushed under the rug.

Making matters even crazier, to help deal with the crisis, Murdoch has actually hired the (former) prosecutor who originally investigated the hacking allegations back in 2005 & 2006, and knew the extent of them, but didn't do much about them. Apparently, UK politicians are screaming about this being a pretty serious conflict of interest, given that the guy failed to do much about the news of the hacking early on. You would think that the Murdochs would realize just how bad hiring this guy would look, but it's beginning to become clear that they're really not sure at all how to react to this news coming out in public after all these years.

Filed Under: eavesdropping, milly dowler, news of the world, rupert murdoch, voicemails

Rupert Murdoch's Journalists Accused Of Hacking Into Murdered Girl's Voicemails, Deleting Some

from the classy dept

Well, this is rather horrific. We've mentioned in the past the story about how reporters for Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, one of the many publications in his News Corp. empire, were accused of hacking into the voicemails of hundreds of people. Every few weeks, it seems, more reports surface of people who have had their voicemails hacked. But the latest may be the worst of the bunch. Apparently, after teenager Milly Dowler disappeared in 2002, but before her murdered body was found, reporters hacked into her voicemail. Not only that, but they deleted some messages in order to make more room for new messages. Apparently, the deletions were part of what gave her parents hope that Dowler was still alive, believing that perhaps she was checking her voicemail. Most of the earlier reports on Murdochs' journalists hacking into voicemail had focused on politicians and celebrities. But this sounds like they may have actually destroyed evidence and tampered with an actual police investigation. The company has been paying off some of the celebrities whose voicemail was hacked, but this takes things to an entirely different level.

Filed Under: eavesdropping, milly dowler, news of the world, rupert murdoch, voicemails
Companies: news corp.

Hugh Grant: Investigative Reporter

from the funny-how-things-work dept

You may have heard of the big scandal story, that's been going on for a bit in the UK, concerning reporters from Rupert Murdoch's News of the World listening to voicemails of all sorts of people, in the course of their reporting. There had been earlier reports that it just targeted the royal family, but, last fall, reports came out that it was widespread and covered all sorts of famous people and people in the news. There have been questions about how much the government or law enforcement officials have been investigating this whole thing... so leave it to an unlikely investigative reporter to turn up some news: actor Hugh Grant, one of the people whose voicemail was accessed.

Grant has a somewhat entertaining story in the New Statesman concerning his own secretly recorded interview with one of the ex-reporters who "blew the whistle" on the privacy breaches. Apparently, Grant had randomly met the guy when his car broke down and this guy stopped to help him... while also taking some photos of him that later appeared in the news. When asked to write an article for the New Statesman, Grant thought that he might as well interview the guy, and since he wasn't at all pleased about the photos appearing in the paper (and the whole thing about his voicemails being listened to), he decided to record the interview without letting the guy know.

While there's some general amusement from the fact that Hugh Grant is acting as an investigative reporter, there really is a larger point here. One of the things we commonly hear concerning arguments for paywalls or government support of newspapers is that, without the professionals, no serious investigative reporting would be done. Now, I'm not saying we don't need professionals. I believe professional investigative reporters are important and are likely to remain in business for quite some time. But, you can't discount the fact that they're not the only game in town, anymore. Anyone can be an investigative reporter, if the situation presents itself. Yes, it may involve people who are somehow "connected" to a story and want to get to the bottom of it, but that doesn't make what they turn up any less "news." The key point: if there's a market for it, there will be a way to get it done. There's definitely a market for investigative journalism, and I have no fear that it will continue to be done... even if it occasionally includes random surprises like Hugh Grant bugging a former reporter.

Filed Under: hugh grant, journalism, news of the world, rupert murdoch, spying

Advertisers Bailing On Murdoch's Paywalls As The Company Won't Reveal How Many People See Ads

from the not-looking-good dept

A few weeks back, we pointed to reports suggesting that Rupert Murdoch's paywall experiments with The Times and Sunday Times in London were a disaster, as nearly everyone -- readers, journalists, advertisers and publicists -- were bailing on the publications. Soon after that, however, Murdoch's News Corp. announced plans to also put the big UK tabloid News of the World behind a paywall, with some suggesting that James Murdoch (Rupert's son, who is leading this effort) was seeing success with the other paywalls. However, the evidence on that is still lacking. Instead, we're hearing more and more reports that suggest serious trouble for the Murdochs, father and son, as they double down on an economically dangerous strategy.

Simon Dumenco points us to a recent Bloomberg piece that quotes a guy from ad firm Starcom MediaVest, saying that they've cut their ad spend on the Times and Sunday Times by more than 50% because News Corp. won't share with them traffic numbers:

"We wouldn't put our money where we don't know the numbers, just as you wouldn't invest in a stock," [Starcom's Chris] Bailes said.

Separately, Bailes notes that, thanks to competition, there are better places to spend their money:

"I can go to the Guardian or CNN and get an audience... No one is indispensable."

Of course, we were among the many, many voices that suggested James Murdoch brush up on his economics before pursuing this strategy. Now that he's doubling down, I'd have to, once again, suggest that he update his economic analysis.

Filed Under: advertisers, james murdoch, news of the world, paywalls
Companies: news corp.