Douglas Caddy Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Met loses diary that may have proven former chief's links to Rupert Murdoch The Independent By James Cusick and Cahal Milmo Thursday, 6 October 2011 Scotland Yard has lost crucial documents which would have disclosed whether the former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Lord Stevens, frequently met senior News of the World executives while he was in office, including an editor at the tabloid who is alleged to have been involved in the illegal hacking of emails. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) confirmed to The Independent that it is currently investigating the missing diaries of the former Commissioner. In response to a Freedom of Information request made by Ian Hurst, a former British Army intelligence officer who was involved in running IRA informers in Northern Ireland, the Met said that its officers had been "unable to locate the diary of Lord Stevens and cannot therefore answer your questions in relation to him". Mr Hurst, who is a "core participant" in the Leveson Inquiry that will examine illegal practices at Rupert Murdoch's News International, asked the Met whether two former Commissioners, Lord Stevens and Sir Ian Blair, had held meetings with Alex Marunchak, a former editor of the NOTW's Ireland edition, between 2000 and 2011. The Met said there were no recorded meetings with Sir Ian – but that Lord Stevens' appointments diary could no longer be located. Mr Marunchak, who left NI in 2006, denied allegations in a BBC Panorama programme broadcast in March this year that he paid a private detective to hack into emails on Mr Hurst's computer. The BBC film showed footage of a meeting between Mr Hurst and a former Army intelligence colleague who claimed he had accessed the emails under instruction from Mr Marunchak. Mr Hurst is suing the NOTW, alleging that the newspaper employed private detectives to hack into his computer and obtain information relating to his handling of a senior IRA informer. The ICO confirmed that the missing diaries cover the period 2000 to 2005 when Lord Stevens was head of the Met. During this period he conducted an external police inquiry in Northern Ireland that concluded there had been collusion between the British Army, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and loyalist terrorists that had led to the murder of nationalists in the province. One colleague of Lord Stevens during his time as head of the Met described him as "a master" of dealing with the media, and said he cultivated associations with Fleet Street's editors. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, later said she had concerns over the closeness of the relationship between News International and the police. Officials investigating the disappearance of the diaries will have to decide if there has been a breach of the Data Protection Act. The is the first time the ICO has had to deal with such a high-profile disappearance from what should be a public archive. A spokesman for Lord Stevens said last night: "The diaries of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner are the property of the Metropolitan Police and therefore they must be approached for that information." The Metropolitan Police, however, said that Lord Stevens' diaries were not a public document, and added that "there is no requirement to keep the dairy of the outgoing Commissioner, which is a working document to support the running of the office on a daily basis". How 'Captain Beaujolais' became a master of the media Lord Stevens During his time as head of the Met, from 2000 to 2005, John Stevens' colleagues noted his fondness for fine wine: he became "Captain Beaujolais". He also divided their loyalty. For some he was "a copper's copper", the man responsible for a rise in the number of officers and improved crime figures. Others noted the charm offensive deployed on Fleet Street, aided by the Met's public affairs head, Dick Fedorcio. One senior officer said he was "a master of the media" who hadn't appreciated the costs attached to close media relationships. After he left the force, his police experience delivered significant wealth: he is the executive chairman of Quest Ltd, a corporate security business, and holds four other directorships. His links to the media were maintained. A column for the NOTW saw Captain Beaujolais put to one side in favour of "The Chief". The NOTW's closure saw the chief's demise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 News Corp sets up hotline for staff to report 'illegal activity' The Independent By Ian Burrell, Media Editor Friday, 7 October 2011 Journalists at News International (NI) and other staff in Rupert Murdoch's media empire have been told to call a hotline to report suspicious colleagues in a fresh clampdown on corruption and other illegal activities. The instructions to call an "alertline", following the introduction of the Bribery Act earlier this year, come after revelations that journalists from the company's defunct newspaper, the News of the World, paid serving police officers for information. The policy, circulated by Eugenie C Gavenchak, News Corp's chief compliance and ethics officer, stresses that employees are under an obligation to report colleagues, and suggests they use a dedicated line, which is "available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year". It states: "Employees who suspect... violations of this policy must report them to the legal department of the business unit or of News Corporation, or to the News Corporation alertline." News Corp promises to give legal support to those who wrongly accuse a fellow employee. "If you make an honest complaint in good faith, even if you are mistaken as to what you are complaining about, the company will protect you from retaliation," its policy states. The development comes as a team of Metropolitan Police officers is conducting Operation Elveden into suspected payments made by NI journalists to police officers. The operation was launched after NI passed a series of emails to Scotland Yard. The emails are reported to suggest that some police officers were being paid by the newspaper between 2003 and 2007. The investigation is being led by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers and being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. NI has assigned the legal firm Linklaters to question departmental heads over past practices. Linklaters is currently conducting an audit of emails passing through the news desk of The Sun, as part of a review of journalistic standards. News Corp sources have said it is incorrect to speculate that any inappropriate activity on any other NI titles could be inferred from the review. The News Corp policy, set out in a six-page document, warns that British bribery laws and other legislation introduced in other parts of the world mean that employees can face bribery accusations over such things as charity donations or excessive hospitality. It is especially strict on the subject of bribing public servants. "Gifts and hospitality that may be perfectly acceptable among private parties can be completely forbidden when the other party is a government official." Some NI journalists receiving the circular were concerned about the implications for them entertaining valued contacts who provide them with information. The policy warns: "Under no circumstances should gifts, entertainment or hospitality be given by you to others in order to improperly influence someone to act favourably towards the company." Any hospitality "must be reasonable in value, respectable in type or venue [and] have a legitimate business purpose", it adds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 Reporter claims 'People' hacked phones of celebrities The Independent By James Cusick Friday, 7 October 2011 The telephones of the TV presenters Ulrika Jonsson and Noel Edmonds and the nanny of footballer David Beckham's children, Abbie Gibson, were "hacked" by journalists on the People newspaper, according to allegations made by a reporter on the title. In a never-used witness statement for an employment tribunal, David Brown claimed phone hacking was common among his colleagues, according to a report by Sky News. His statement, from 2007, says that when News of the World's former royal editor, Clive Goodman, was jailed in 2006, Mirror Group executives ordered that anyone on their titles should deny any accusations. Yesterday Trinity Mirror said the accusations were unsubstantiated: "All our journalists work within the criminal law and the Press Complaints Commission Code of conduct. We have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise." Mr Brown was fired from the People in April 2006 for gross misconduct; he sued, but settled out of court. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 News Corp investors call for James Murdoch's head The Independent By Nick Clark Friday, 7 October 2011 James Murdoch faced further calls to quit News Corporation's board yesterday after a shareholder activist group representing £100bn in assets said he was causing the company "significant reputational damage". The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), the majority of whose 54 members own shares in the US-based News Corp, called for an overhaul of the board, and added that Mr Murdoch's continued presence on the board was "no longer in shareholders' interest". News Corp declined to comment yesterday. Mr Murdoch runs News Corp's operations in Europe. In the wake of the phone hacking scandal, the LAPFF circulated a briefing paper to its members advising they oppose his re-election to the board. It also demanded a "genuinely independent chair" criticising Rupert Murdoch holding both that and the chief executive role. News Corp investors will vote on whether to re-elect the Murdochs at the company's annual general meeting in California later this month. The LAPFF said its members "want a line drawn under the hacking". Yet the forum's chairman, Ian Greenwood, said it would only be possible to move on "if the board accepts the need to demonstrate real accountability. That requires a change in the structure and make-up of the board". He concluded: "Whilst these are difficult issues for the company to address, we believe that to secure News Corp's long-term future such reform is necessary." The LAPFF's pension fund members met on Wednesday for a scheduled quarterly meeting, and the issue of the structure of News Corp's board was top of the agenda. One source close to the meeting said none of the members opposed the points raised in the briefing paper "and no dissenting voices were heard". The phone-hacking scandal, with allegations that journalists tapped the phones of celebrities and crime victims and their families, continues to engulf News Corp and prompted it to close the News of the World. The forum said that it had drawn up its recommendations for its members after "extensive research into the phone-hacking scandal" and after engaging News Corp directly. The forum said: "The News Corp board must take responsibility for the hacking scandal." The group did back three of the 15-strong board to maintain their roles. It supported lead director Rod Eddington as well as Viet Dinh, who carried out an internal review in response to the hacking allegations and which "must be given time to reach its conclusions". It also backs Andrew Knight, saying he had played a "positive role" in engaging with the forum. It is understood that the forum has not yet drawn up recommendations over Sky, which News Corp failed in its attempt to buy this year and where James Murdoch is chairman. The LAPFF was advised by Pirc, an investor advisory body that has long raised issues about James Murdoch's presence on the News Corp and BSkyB boards. In a recent note, Pirc recommended opposing all but two of the News Corp directors seeking re-election. Those two were chief operating officer Chase Carey, and chief financial officer David DeVoe. On James Murdoch, Pirc said: "There is sufficient doubt surrounding when Mr Murdoch became aware that the practice of phone hacking went beyond a rogue reporter. "We also have concerns about the failure to respond robustly to initial allegations of phone hacking." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 James Cusick: Can Leveson Inquiry remember what it's for? Our writer gets a taste of the battles ahead as hacking inquiry cranks up The Independent Friday, 7 October 2011 The advisory note from the Leveson Inquiry described the gathering in the QE2 conference centre yesterday as a "seminar". It wasn't. Resembling a very bad edition of Question Time, where normal people were banished and replaced by room-full of big egos, it became a forum trying to promote the myth that unethical or illegal activity never happened in Britain's squeaky-clean media. The opening remark from Sir David Bell, the former chairman of the Financial Times, sounded like an appeal to the Guinness book of records. "I doubt a gathering like this has ever happened before," he said. Sadly, there will be no new entry. Check the reservations at The Ivy or Soho House any night. They'll look similar. Sir David said he wanted to start "a debate". The seminar was billed as an examination of "the competitive pressures on the press and the impact on journalism". The media analyst Claire Enders offered comprehensive evidence that the UK's media landscape is a tough place to survive. Young people were using the printed media less than older people; despite the growth of everything from the iPad to smart phones, "analogue dollars still equalled digital pennies". If the media great-and-good didn't already know this, they were in the wrong place. It is the continuing fallout from News International's deployment of phone hacking and other dark arts that makes the Leveson Inquiry necessary. But yesterday's gathering suggested many may have forgotten why they were there. The former News of the World editor Phil Hall could have reminded them. Instead, he recalled his first chat with Rupert Murdoch, who told him circulation of the tabloid would fall by a million over the next few years. Rupert didn't mind at all, said Hall, because all he wanted was a "great competitive newspaper". It sounded like Hall had got "The News of the Screws" confused with The New York Times. Pressures in the NOTW newsroom? "Only our professional pride." The former Daily Star reporter Richard Peppiatt resigned last year over what he saw as the paper's Islamophobia. His seminar input was clear: tabloid newsdesks are evil and twisted and it's no fun in the gutter. Newsdesks, said Peppiatt, worked like this: "Tell us what we want to hear and we won't ask how you got it." That should have been the seminar's cue to explore the ethics of illegal phone intercepts, the hiring of suspect private detectives, the bribing of police officers, the uncomfortably close relationships between the Metropolitan Police and senior NI executives. It didn't happen. Instead, the Q&A sessions that followed descended into hybrid bar chats, with each editor saying, in their own words, why my paper, my boys, my standards, are better than yours. It took the intervention of Ian Hargreaves, professor of journalism at Cardiff University and a former editor of The Independent, to remind the inquiry that they were in danger of missing the ethical point – that phone hacking really couldn't be explained away by talk of the industry's new-found commercial pressures. Roy Greenslade, a former Mirror editor, cited the Profumo affair as the beginning of the trouble. The editor of The Sun, Dominic Mohan, said there was no trouble and repeated the Hall maxim: "Our pressure is our professional pride." The bosses from the Telegraph, The Mail on Sunday, the Mirror, and the people from The People, all agreed. Peppiatt's gutter was a land they didn't recognise. The seminar had just descended into back-patting. If Lord Leveson allows months of this, his inquiry will fail before it has started. A talking shop with a delusionary rose-tinted view of Fleet Street isn't what was ordered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 7, 2011 Share Posted October 7, 2011 Phone hacking: PR firm Bell Pottinger puts its money behind Rebekah Brooks Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, is being supplied with the services of Bell Pottinger free of charge. Daily Telegraph 7:30AM BST 07 Oct 2011 Although she must now be reconciled to receiving somewhat fewer Christmas cards this year, Rebekah Brooks, the ousted chief executive of News International, can still count on the support of one of Baroness Thatcher’s most trusted allies. Lord Bell’s public relations firm Bell Pottinger is attending to her somewhat battered image on a pro bono basis. The company has been representing Brooks in all her dealings with the media since she stepped down at the height of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal in July. It would normally charge thousands of pounds for its services.“ This is most intriguing,” says one media figure. "They’re obviously not representing her for the prestige, so they must see her as a good long-term bet.” In August, I disclosed that Brooks remained on the payroll at Rupert Murdoch’s News International. “My understanding is that Rupert has told her to travel the world on him for a year and then he will find a job for her when the scandal has died down,” said my informant. Tim Bell is the chairman of Bell Pottinger’s parent company, Chime Communications. While he worked for the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, he ran Lady Thatcher’s successful 1979 and 1983 general election campaigns. Bell Pottinger’s clients have included the governments of Bahrain and Belarus, as well as the controversial oil company Trafigura. “We don’t comment on the financial arrangements between ourselves and our clients,” a spokesman says. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 8, 2011 Share Posted October 8, 2011 Murdoch's minions keep drawing lines but to no great effect Blog by Roy Greenslade Guardian.co.uk October 5, 2011 Ever since Nick Davies's first major phone hacking revelation in July 2009, News International has been in damage limitation mode. The problem, as the latest crop of lawsuits exposes yet again, is that the damage is just too large to limit. Every attempt by Rupert Murdoch and his executives to draw a line under the affair has proved utterly futile. They must have run out of pencils by now. Line one - pushing the infamous single rogue reporter defence - seems like ancient history now. Line two - throwing mud at Davies and The Guardian in the expectation that they would get fed up - was always a flawed tactic. Line three - relying on the Met police and the Press Complaints Commission for their "official" opinions to defuse the row - was exposed as imperfect. Line four - putting aside a £20m contingency fund to see off a couple of irritating legal actions - looked like an attempt to bury bad news by a wealthy magnate. Today's revelation that the company now faces more than 60 writs, including actions by people such as Sara Payne, Paul Dadge and Shaun Russell, also shows that the financial cost is likely to escalate way beyond that total. Line five - closing the News of the World - did made not the least difference to the continuing saga of revelations. Line six - dealing direct with Milly Dowler's family as a way of defusing their hurt and public anger - proved to be no more than a synthetic PR exercise. Line seven - creating a supposedly arm's-length management and standards committee - has not assuaged public concern Line eight - Rupert and James Murdoch appearing before the Commons media select committee - simply engendered more speculation and has resulted in James being recalled. Line nine - sacking various former News of the World staff and refusing to stump up for legal fees for ex-employees - will surely prove to be the worst responses of all. Once people in the know are released from their obligations, and are fired with righteous anger because they have previously remained loyal, then the game is bound to be up. It was surely in News International's interests to keep everyone in the tent. Now, with so many people facing the possibility of being charged while others are already facing heavy legal costs, they have given the Wapping exiles every reason to work against them. Murdoch's minions can go on drawing lines, hoping that this one or that one will finally do the job. But it will fail. And News Int should certainly think again about Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 10, 2011 Share Posted October 10, 2011 News Corp investors urged to be cautious over re-election of Murdochs Glass Lewis, an influential shareholder adviser, adds its voice to those recommending a shakeup of the News Corp board By Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk, Sunday 9 October 2011 12.21 EDT The campaign to unseat members of the Murdoch family from their positions as directors of News Corporation may have spread to the US with cautionary advice about them from an influential adviser. Glass Lewis, which advises institutions holding $15tn (£9.6tn) worth of investments, has recommended that investors vote against the re-election of Rupert Murdoch's two sons, James and Lachlan, at the News Corp annual meeting next week in protest at the phone-hacking scandal. A report from Glass Lewis advises investors to "carefully consider the nature of the relationship each director has with the company and with its controlling shareholder, the Murdoch family, in order to establish a board with proper independence levels and strong oversight". The move follows advice in Britain from the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum that Rupert and James should step down. The institutional shareholder advisory service, Pirc, has called for a shakeup. The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors said last month that the News Corp board structure "does not reflect good corporate governance" and called for six directors to stand down. Glass Lewis is also recommending shareholders carefully consider the re-election of Natalie Bancroft, David DeVoe, Andrew Knight and Arthur Suskind as well as the Murdoch sons on the grounds that they are not sufficiently independent. Concerns about personnel on the board have existed for many years but the phone-hacking scandal unearthed by the Guardian and which led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper in Britain has been seen as a symptom of wider problems at the company. A corporate governance specialist who asked not to be named said the move by Glass Lewis could trigger other influential organisations such as Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) to come out against News Corp directors. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers), the largest US public pension fund and a leading campaigner on corporate governance issues, has yet to comment, but in summer it launched an attack on the dual-class structure that gives the Murdoch family almost 40% of the voting rights in the company despite owning only 12% of the equity. Calpers described this as "a corruption of the governance system". News Corp declined to comment last night on the growing row before its 21 October annual general meeting but the Murdochs know their voting strength makes it difficult for investors to unseat the family members or other directors who have close ties with them. The Murdochs have been under fire since July when it emerged that the News of the World had illegally targeted the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family in March 2002, interfering with police inquiries into her disappearance. An inquiry was launched by Scotland Yard and soon led to the resignation of the then editor of the paper, Rebekah Brooks, who was more recently Rupert Murdoch's chief executive in the UK. The police investigation continues, and last week Lord Justice Leveson began a government-backed review of press behaviour and ethics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 Les Hinton recalled in hacking inquiry The Independent By Andrew Woodcock Tuesday, 11 October 2011 Former News International executive chairman Les Hinton is to give further evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating allegations of phone-hacking at the News of the World, it was announced today. Mr Hinton, who lives in the USA, will be questioned by the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee via videolink on October 24. He is expected to be asked about the period during which payments were made to News of the World royal correspondent Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who were jailed in 2007 for eavesdropping on private voicemail messages. On October 19, the committee will take evidence from Julian Pike of Farrer & Co, the solicitors who advised News International in case of Professional Footballers Association chief executive Gordon Taylor, as well as from solicitor Mark Lewis, who represents many of the News of the World's alleged victims. Committee chair John Whittingdale said last month that he wanted to gather evidence from Mr Hinton and Farrer's before recalling James Murdoch - the European chief executive of News Corporation, which owns News International, the publishers of the defunct Sunday tabloid - for what is expected to be the final session in the long-running inquiry. Mr Murdoch is expected to be asked about apparent discrepancies in evidence received by the committee about exactly when he was informed that the hacking problem may extend beyond a single rogue reporter. Mr Hinton was a close lieutenant of News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch until he resigned as CEO of the company's Dow Jones operation in July. PA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 October 10, 2011, 5:26 pm Advisory Firm Urges Ouster of Murdoch and His Sons The New York Times By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED 8:00 p.m. | Updated A major investor advisory firm recommended Monday that shareholders of the News Corporation vote against the re-election of a vast majority of the media conglomerate’s board, including Rupert Murdoch and his sons, who control the company. The firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, wrote in a report that the News Corporation’s incumbent directors, 13 out of 15 board members, failed to prevent the company from stumbling into a morass of corporate troubles. Chief among these is the phone-hacking scandal in Britain that has led to the arrests of several News Corporation executives, parliamentary hearings and a public apology by Mr. Murdoch. The scandal flared up in July, when The Guardian newspaper of London reported that reporters for a News Corporation publication, News of the World, had hacked into the voice mails of a 13-year-old murder victim, Milly Dowler. It eventually grew to encompass charges of widespread hacking and illicit bribes paid to British police officers. The scandal has cost the News Corporation financially. The company eventually closed News of the World after 168 years and scuttled plans to buy control of a major satellite television provider, British Sky Broadcasting, for about $12 billion. Institutional Shareholder Services wrote that the phone-hacking revelations had exposed “a striking lack of stewardship and failure of independence by a board whose inability to set a strong tone-at-the-top about unethical business practices has now resulted in enormous costs — financial, legal, regulatory, reputational and opportunity — for the shareholders the board ostensibly serves.” Only two of the News Corporation’s director nominees, Joel I. Klein and the venture capitalist James Breyer, received the advisory firm’s approval, since they have served on the board for only a few months. Mr. Klein, who formerly served as the chancellor of New York City’s public schools, is helping supervise the phone-hacking inquiry. Firms like Institutional Shareholder Services can hold great sway over public companies’ investors. Many large shareholders often follow proxy advisers’ recommendations. Still, the firm’s call to arms is largely symbolic, since Mr. Murdoch, the News Corporation’s chairman and chief executive, controls about 40 percent of the company’s voting shares. Prince Walid bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who owns about 7 percent of News Corp.’s stock, publicly backed the company’s management in July. Institutional Shareholder Services also took issue with the News Corporation’s executive compensation plans, particularly the near-tripling of Mr. Murdoch’s cash bonus for the 2011 fiscal year to $12.5 million. It noted that Chase Carey, the News Corporation’s deputy chairman and chief operating officer, received a tax benefit when his contract was renewed, although his base salary was cut in half to $4.05 million. The firm recommended voting against the executive compensation proposal, although it is only advisory. As expected, the News Corporation took issue with the recommendations, saying it “strongly disagrees” with them. “The company takes the issues surrounding News of the World seriously and is working hard to resolve them,” Teri Everett, a company spokeswoman, said in a statement. “However, I.S.S.’s disproportionate focus on these issues is misguided and a disservice to our stockholders. Moreover, I.S.S. failed to consider that the company’s compensation practices reflect its robust performance in FY 2011 driven by its broad, diverse group of businesses across the globe.” Shares in the News Corporation closed up more than 4 percent on Monday, at $16.97. Copyright 2011 The New York Times CompanyPrivacy PolicyNYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 Phone hacking: Les Hinton to give evidence to MPs for third time Rupert Murdoch's former right-hand man to be interviewed over News of the World phone hacking on 24 October By James Robinson guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 11 October 2011 11.10 EDT Rupert Murdoch's former right-hand man, Les Hinton, will give evidence to MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee for a third time on 24 October, it was announced today. Hinton, who chaired the UK newspaper arm of News Corp, Murdoch's media empire, will be interviewed via videolink from the US by MPs investigating phone hacking by the News of the World. Hinton was executive chairman of News International (NI) from 1995 to 2007. He subsequently became chief executive of Dow Jones, after News Corp bought the company, before resigning in July at the height of the phone-hacking scandal. He had told MPs in March 2007 that he believed that Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter jailed for phone hacking, had acted alone. In September 2009, after the first allegations that hacking was more widespread, he said he had seen no evidence to suggest that was the case. At the time of his resignation Hinton said he had "watched with sorrow from New York as the News of the World story has unfolded" but said that although he had seen "hundreds of news reports of both actual and alleged misconduct during the time I was executive chairman of News International", he was "ignorant of what apparently happened". However, he said he chose to quit because "in the circumstances I feel it is proper for me to resign from News Corp and apologise to those hurt by the actions of News of the World". Julian Pike, of News International's solicitors Farrer & Co, will also be questioned by the committee on 19 October, along with Mark Lewis, the solicitor who represents phone-hacking victims, including the family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Pike acted for NI when the company settled a phone-hacking case with the Professional Footballers' Association chief executive, Gordon Taylor, in April 2008. Farrer has defended News International in a number of other phone-hacking cases. The select committee is keen to establish the facts around a settlement with Taylor, which was reached after his legal team discovered an email sent by a News of the World journalist, containing a transcript of messages left on Taylor's phone. Marked "for Neville", the transcript is understood to have been earmarked for Neville Thurlbeck, the former chief reporter on the title. Mark Lewis meanwhile represented Taylor in a case that was settled with a confidential £425,000 payout plus costs made in 2007. In 2009 details about the settlement first emerged, suggesting for the first time that phone hacking had gone beyond Clive Goodman. The paper's former editor, Colin Myler, and its legal director, Tom Crone, told the committee earlier this year they had told James Murdoch about the existence of the email and that it was the reason for settling the Taylor case. Murdoch denied this when he appeared before the committee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Wall Street Journal circulation scam claims senior Murdoch executive Andrew Langhoff resigns as European publishing chief after exposure of secret channels of cash to help boost sales figures By Nick Davies guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 October 2011 12.27 One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior European executives has resigned following Guardian inquiries about a circulation scam at News Corporation's flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation. The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities, a move which led some staff to accuse the paper's management of violating journalistic ethics and jeopardising its treasured reputation for editorial quality. Internal emails and documents suggest the scam was promoted by Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in July 2007. Langhoff resigned on Tuesday. The highly controversial activities were organised in London and focused on the Journal's European edition, which circulates in the EU, Russia, and Africa. Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant. In what appears to have been a damage limitation exercise following the Guardian's inquiries, Langhoff resigned on Tuesday, citing only the complaints of unethical interference in editorial coverage. Neither he nor an article published last night in the Wall Street Journal made any reference to the circulation scam nor to the fact that the senior management of Dow Jones in New York failed to act when they were alerted last year. The affair will add weight to the fears of shareholders in Murdoch's parent company, NewsCorp, that the business has become a 'rogue corporation', operating outside normal rules. Some shareholders have launched a legal action in the US, attacking the Murdoch family after the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and following lawsuits in which NewsCorp subsidiaries have been accused of hacking into competitors' computers and stealing their customers. The Journal's decision to secretly purchase its own papers began with an unusual scheme to boost circulation, known as the Future Leadership Institute. Starting in January 2008, the Journal linked up with European companies who sponsored seminars for university students who were likely to be future leaders. The Journal rewarded the sponsors by publishing their names in a special panel published in the paper. The sponsors paid for that publicity by buying copies of the Journal at a knock-down rate of no more than 5¢ each. Those papers were then distributed to university students. At the bottom line, the sponsors enjoyed a prestigious link to the Journal, and the Journal boosted its circulation figures. The scheme was controversial. The sponsoring companies were not reading the papers they were paying for; they were never even seeing them; and they were buying at highly reduced rates. The students to whom they were distributed may or may not have read them; none of the students paid for the papers they were being offered. But the Audit Bureau of Circulation ruled that the scheme was legitimate and by 2010, it was responsible for 41% of the European edition's daily sales – 31,000 copies out of a total of 75,000. In early 2010 the scheme began to run into trouble when the biggest single sponsor, a Dutch company called Executive Learning Partnership, ELP, threatened to back out. ELP alone were responsible for 16% of the Journal's European circulation, sponsoring 12,000 copies a day for which they were paying only 1¢ per copy. For the 259 publishing days in a year, they were sponsoring 3.1m copies at a cost to them of €31,080 (£27,200). They complained that the publicity they were receiving was not enough return on their investment. On 9 April 2010, Andrew Langhoff emailed ELP to table a new deal, explaining that "our clear goal is to add a new component to our partnership" and offering to "provide a well-branded showcase for ELP's valuable services". On 30 April, ELP agreed to continue to sponsor 12,000 copies at the same rate. But that deal included a new eight-page addendum, which the Guardian has seen. The addendum included a collection of side deals: the Journal would give ELP free advertising and, in exchange, the ELP would produce "leadership videos" for them; they would jointly organise more seminars and workshops on themes connected to ELP's work; but, crucially, Langhoff agreed that the Journal would publish "a minimum of three special reports" that would be based on surveys of the European market which ELP would run with the Journal's help. It is this agreement that is now being cited as the reason for Langhoff's resignation on Tuesday. It led to the Journal publishing a full-page feature on 14 October 2010 that reported a survey conducted by ELP about the use of social media in business, quoting ELP's chief executive at length. The story carried no warning for readers that it was the result of a deal between the Journal and ELP, nor that ELP were sponsoring 16% of the paper's European circulation. Similarly, there were no warnings attached to a second story, published on 14 March 2011, which consisted of an interview with one of ELP's senior partners, Ann de Jaeger, about the role of women in company boardrooms. The ELP deal continued to cause more serious problems. Some Journal staff complained the agreement to run stories promoting ELP was unethical. On 12 July 2010, one London executive emailed that "some elements of the deal do not fit easily within best practice, brand guidelines and company policy". Others warned about the quality of the surveys on which the stories were to be based. By the autumn of 2010, ELP were complaining that the Journal was failing to deliver its end of the agreement. They threatened not to make a payment of €15,000 that was due at the end of December, for the copies of the Journal which they had sponsored since April 30. Without the payment, the Journal could not officially record the sales and their circulation figures would suddenly dive by 16%, undermining the confidence of advertisers and readers. So Langhoff set up a complex scheme to channel money to ELP to pay for the papers it had agreed to buy – effectively buying the papers with the Journal's own cash. This involved the use of other companies although it is not suggested that they were aware they were taking part in a scam. The best-documented example involves an Indian technology company, HCL, who had separately agreed to pay the Journal €16,000 to organise a special event at the Grosvenor House hotel in London on 30 September 2010. Langhoff proposed that instead of paying the Journal, HCL should pass some of this money to a middleman – a Belgian publishing company – who would then pass it on to ELP. Invoices and emails seen by the Guardian show that in November 2010, ELP sent two invoices, for €2,000 and €6,000, to the Belgian publishers of a magazine called Banking and Finance. The Belgians duly paid €8,000 to ELP, even though ELP had not provided any goods or services for which they owed this money. According to the invoices, however, the magazine were paying ELP sponsorship money for an event run by the Journal in the Belgian towns of Bree and Schilde in November 2010. The Belgian magazine was sent €2,000 by HCL. A second payment of €6,000 was never made because HCL fell into dispute with the Journal. In December 2010, as part of an attempt to persuade the Journal to pay them the missing €6,000, the Belgian publishers' managing director, Michel Klompmaker, signed a formal letter that "hereby states that there has never been a contract between us and ELP regarding the sponsorship of a Wall Street Journal Bree/Schilde summit for €6,000. We agreed to be a facilitator in a payment process between the Journal, HCL and ELP per request of the Journal". An email from Andrew Langhoff on 26 November 2010 includes a diagram that indicates money was channelled to ELP through two other middlemen. This suggests that Langhoff wanted €15,000 sent to ELP via a Belgian company called Think Media, which sells space on billboards. An invoice dated 2 December 2010, shows that ELP invoiced Think Media for €15,000. An email from 20 December shows that Think Media had paid the €15,000 to ELP. In a series of phone calls and emails to Think Media, the Guardian put it to the company that ELP had provided no goods or services in exchange for this payment, and that the payment was made at the request of the Journal. Think Media declined to respond. The same diagram suggests Langhoff wanted a further €2,000 channelled to ELP through a Belgian technology company, Nayan, which had occasionally sponsored Journal events. Nayan confirmed to the Guardian that they had paid ELP €2,000 in December 2010. They say they understood that ELP were owed this money by the Journal because they had put in some work on a Journal event, and that Nayan paid it as part of their agreement to sponsor the event. A Journal source with direct knowledge of the event says that Nayan were misled by the paper, and that ELP provided no services at the event for which they were due to be paid. While these payments were being made, a whistleblower from the Journal in Europe contacted the management of Dow Jones in New York and alerted them to the circulation scam and to the controversial agreement to publish articles promoting ELP. Emails seen by the Guardian indicate that the whistleblower's complaint was seen by New York executives, including Les Hinton – then the chief executive of Dow Jones and a close confidant of Rupert Murdoch. Hinton resigned in July in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World. The emails show that the chief human resources officer for Dow Jones, Gregory Giangrande, organised a meeting in London on 14 December at which the whistleblower detailed his allegations to a Dow Jones lawyer from New York, Tom Maher, and Dow Jones' European human resources executive Carol Bosack. After the meeting, Bosack emailed the whistleblower: "You are expected to keep details and your reaction or beliefs about the recent events confidential and not shared with anyone external or internal to the business. This matter is to be kept between us, Andrew [Langhoff], Internal Audit and Corporate Legal." No action was apparently taken at that time on the whistleblower's allegations. The whistleblower, who had worked for Dow Jones for 9 years, was made redundant in January. According to one source, recent Guardian inquiries among former Journal staff and companies who were involved in the payments to ELP "caused a panic" at Dow Jones, resulting in Andrew Langhoff's resignation on Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal last night reported that Langhoff's resignation "following an internal investigation into two articles published in the Wall Street Journal Europe that featured a company with a contractual link to the paper's circulation department." It quoted an email sent to staff yesterday by Langhoff about the agreement to publish the ELP stories: "Because the agreement could leave the impression that news coverage can be influenced by commercial relationships, as publisher with executive oversight, I believe that my resignation is now the most honorable course." Disclaimers have now been added to the two stories, warning readers that the "impetus" for the stories was an agreement between the Journal's circulation department and ELP. Asked about the payments from the Journal to ELP via the various middlemen, the chairman of ELP, Nick van Heck, said it was the company's policy not to make public comment on their contracts. He added: "I am confident that every member of our staff is fully aware of the European norms, which are very rigid when it comes to accounting. I'm pretty confident that what we did was in line with the law." On Tuesday afternoon Dow Jones issued a statement saying said it initiated the original investigation into the deals in question and the employees involved in late 2010. "The circulation programs and the copies associated with ELP were legitimate and appropriate, and the agreement was shared with ABC UK before the deal was signed," the statement said. "All circulation periods during the ELP arrangement have been certified." "We came to the conclusion that ELP was only compensated for valid services; however, we were uncomfortable with the appearance of these programs and the manner in which they were arranged. We subsequently eliminated the position of one of the employees responsible for those deals in January 2011. "At this point, we no longer have relationships with the employees or third parties directly involved in these agreements, and we continue to believe that these deals were valid. They were however of poor appearance. We were not fully aware of the details of the editorial component of the relationship until last week, when we immediately took action Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Exclusive: New hacking shame Police were given evidence in 2002 that News of the World had access to illegally obtained messages from Milly Dowler's phone – but did nothing about it The Independent By Cahal Milmo and James Cusick Friday, 14 October 2011 Senior Surrey Police detectives investigating the disappearance of Milly Dowler held two meetings with journalists from the News of the World and were shown evidence that the newspaper held information taken from the voicemails of the murdered schoolgirl. An investigation by The Independent which focuses on this crucial period of the phone-hacking scandal reveals that the force subsequently failed to investigate or take action against the News International title. One of the officers who attended the meetings was Craig Denholm, currently Deputy Chief Constable of Surrey. He was the Detective Chief Superintendent in charge of Operation Ruby, the code name for the investigation launched following the disappearance of the teenager on 21 March 2002. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is currently investigating claims that a junior detective on Operation Ruby passed information gathered by the inquiry to the NOTW. According to Surrey Police, the officer was removed from the investigation after he passed confidential information about it to a friend outside the force. The Independent has confirmed the identity of the officer, who is still a member of the Surrey force. But his name is being withheld following a claim from his lawyers that revealing his identity could prove "catastrophic" for him and his family because of public anger at the hacking of the schoolgirl's phone. The extent of the Sunday paper's meddling in the Dowler inquiry raises new questions about how far up the executive ladder at News International knowledge of phone hacking had spread at this early stage, and why Surrey Police decided not to follow up evidence that the NOTW had illegally obtained information relevant to one of the most high-profile inquiries in its history. The failure to pursue the Sunday tabloid meant that phone hacking by its journalists continued for another four years until Scotland Yard arrested the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and the NOTW royal editor Clive Goodman in August 2006. Both were later jailed. Mark Lewis, the Dowler family's lawyer, said: "Questions have to be asked as to whether Surrey Police were more concerned with selling papers than solving crimes. What was it with them that, when the public dialled 999, the police dialled NOTW?" The Independent has established that, in April 2002 as police followed multiple leads, the NOTW approached the Surrey force and arranged two meetings during which it was made clear that the paper had obtained information that could only have come from messages on Milly's phone. The meetings, which took place at a Surrey police station, were attended by at least two journalists from the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper and two of the force's most senior detectives, Mr Denholm and Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Gibson, who had day-to-day control of the inquiry. A third Surrey officer also attended. Mr Denholm declined to comment on the meetings when approached by The Independent. Mr Gibson, who has retired from the police, could not be reached for comment despite repeated requests made to Surrey Police. One former Surrey officer said: "The meetings were clearly significant. It was obvious that the newspaper had got hold of details from Milly's phone messages." The Independent has been told that the minutes of at least one of the meetings feature among up to 300 items of unused evidence submitted for the prosecution of Levi Bellfield, the former bouncer who was convicted this summer of Milly's murder. The revelation that the NOTW had accessed and then allegedly deleted some of the schoolgirl's voicemails, providing false hope for her family and friends that she was still alive, proved a tipping point in the hacking scandal, forcing the closure of the Sunday tabloid. It emerged last month that NI is near to finalising a £3m settlement with the Dowler family, including a £1m payment to charity made personally by Mr Murdoch. The contacts between the NOTW and Surrey Police in the early weeks of Operation Ruby are alleged to have begun after the officer under investigation by the IPCC revealed to an individual outside of the inquiry details that were being pursued by the Operation Ruby team. The IPCC is looking at whether the officer gave away confidential material and, if so, whether he received payment for it. Surrey Police has acknowledged that a detective was removed from the investigation and given "words of advice" – the lowest form of admonition – before being transferred to duties at another police station. The Independent has established that, prior to the disciplinary action, executives at the NOTW requested the first of two meetings with the officers leading the Dowler inquiry. Mr Gibson – who later left the investigation – and Mr Denholm met the paper's journalists on two occasions within a number of days. It became clear that the paper had obtained Milly's phone number and accessed her voicemails when the journalists revealed they knew about an apparent offer of a job interview to Milly made on 27 March 2002 at a Midlands factory. Subsequent inquiries by detectives established that the message had been mistakenly left on the schoolgirl's phone. Despite this knowledge, Mr Denholm and his force appear to have taken a decision not to investigate the evidence of phone hacking. The Independent has not been told the identity of the journalists who attended the meetings. However, one of them is understood to be a senior newsroom executive. Surrey Police's lack of action may be due to officers on Operation Ruby wanting to avoid being distracted from the task of locating Milly. Just how the NOTW obtained Milly's phone number remains unclear. The Independent has been told that the schoolgirl was using an unregistered SIM card, meaning her details could not have been "blagged" from her mobile-phone provider by Mulcaire. There is also no suggestion that the information could have been provided by her family, leaving only friends and the police as potential sources. In a statement, Surrey Police said it was prevented from discussing allegations surrounding the Dowler inquiry because of the ongoing IPCC investigation and Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking. It added: "In 2002, Surrey Police's priority was to find Milly and then find out what had happened to her and to bring her killers to justice. Clearly, there was a huge amount of professional interaction between Surrey Police and the media throughout that time." Surrey Police said it had taken the decision to refer the conduct of the detective constable involved in the Dowler murder to the IPCC "in order to be open and transparent". The police watchdog told The Independent its inquiry terms were limited, stating: "The terms of reference ... are specifically in relation to the actions of one detective constable and do not cover whether senior Surrey officers knew about the News of the World hacking Milly Dowler's phone in 2002. However, if during the course of our investigation ... we uncover any evidence of wrongdoing by anybody else in the force, we would of course deal with that." The NOTW made little effort to conceal its success in accessing Milly's voicemails from the public. On 14 April 2002 – within a few days of the meetings with Surrey Police – the paper printed a remarkably candid story in its first edition which detailed three separate voicemails left for the missing schoolgirl between 27 March and 2 April. By this time Bellfield is likely already to have murdered her. The paper reported a voicemail message from a woman purporting to be from a Midlands employment agency. It concerned a job interview. By the time the later editions of the paper came out the story had been radically altered, removing all direct quotations from the voicemails. In evidence to MPs this summer, News International identified four people who, it said, had primary responsibility for reviewing articles in April 2002. This was the then editor Rebekah Brooks, the legal manager Tom Crone, the paper's news editor Neville Thurlbeck and the night editor Peter Smith. It was revealed by The Wall Street Journal in August that Mr Thurlbeck, who has been arrested and bailed on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept voicemails, authorised a stakeout by NOTW journalists of the Epson factory referred to in the 27 March voicemail. Ms Brooks, who resigned as NI chief executive in July, has said she was on holiday when the 14 April story was published. Mr Crone suggested to the Commons Media Select Committee this summer that the changes to the article between editions could have been made because the details of the voicemails were supplied by Surrey Police officers who then changed their minds about the extent of the disclosures when they saw the first edition. The Independent understands that NI has identified the journalist who commissioned Mulcaire to target Milly's voicemails, but his or her name is being withheld for legal reasons. In a statement, a News International spokesperson said: "We are unable to comment on any of the detail in the case. We continue to co-operate fully with the police." Tom Watson, the Labour MP on the Commons committee investigating phone hacking, said The Independent's investigation pointed to one unanswered question: "Who knew at News International?" Under scrutiny: The officers who knew Stuart Gibson As a Detective Chief Inspector, Mr Gibson was in charge of the hunt for Milly Dowler, responsible for co-ordinating the inquiry into a number of leads and theories about her disappearance. Craig Denholm As Deputy Chief Constable he found himself in overall charge of one of the biggest inquiries in Surrey's history when the 13-year-old vanished. Timeline: Dowler case 21 March 2002 Milly Dowler vanishes. 27 March A mystery caller leaves a message apparently inviting Milly to a job interview in the Midlands. Early April The News of the World requests meetings with officers on the case, at which it becomes clear that the newspaper has information from voicemails on Milly's phone. A detective is taken off the case after claims that he disclosed confidential information to a friend ("not a journalist") outside the force. 14 April In its first edition, the NOTW details three voicemails left on Milly's phone, including the message about the job interview. In later editions the details are removed. 20 September Milly's remains are found in woodland in Hampshire. 30 March 2010 Levi Bellfield accused of Milly's murder. 4 July 2011 A fortnight after Bellfield is convicted, The Guardian reveals that Milly's voicemails were hacked by the NOTW. After an outcry the title is closed. 12 August 2011 The Independent Police Complaints Commission announces an investigation into the suspended detective's actions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 James Cusick: They were under pressure – but the police could still have been open about this The Independent Friday, 14 October 2011 At the beginning of April 2002 there was media speculation that the missing schoolgirl Amanda Dowler may have met a mystery boyfriend on an internet chatroom. She had left a message and the police, it was understood, were investigating. As prayers were said for her at an Easter Sunday church service in Walton, the police were promising to review any new material – anything that came their way – including clues that may have been left in a chatroom. Nothing in The Independent's investigation today criticises the efforts Surrey Police made in first trying to find Milly and then investigate who murdered her. Yet something that passed through their inquiries which they have been reluctant to speak about since 2002 is their early contact with the News of the World. It was not until July this year that it emerged that Milly Dowler's mobile phone had been hacked by the NOTW shortly after she went missing. None of these recent events will have been much of a surprise for some officers in Surrey. But had they been open and transparent about the meetings The Independent reveals today, the extent and impact of the use of illegal phone intercepts inside the NOTW's newsroom would, in all probability, have been dramatically lessened. Phone hacking had its first arrests in 2006; its first convictions in 2007; and the Metropolitan Police's Operation Weeting and other police inquiries into the use of illegal intercepts may yet reveal an extended timeline. This puts into perspective the importance of the events in April 2002 that were being dealt with by the officers leading the investigation. As they have stated, there was a "huge amount of professional interaction between Surrey Police and the media throughout that time". Given the pressures on the tabloid media discussed in the initial seminars of the Leveson Inquiry, it is understandable for the police at the centre of a high-profile case to have felt a parallel pressure in doing their job. But "interaction" does not explain, nor excuse, senior officers meeting with the News of the World and discussing evidence gained from the illegal practice of phone hacking. This evidence was never followed up – and after nine years is finally emerging. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Douglas Caddy Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Joan Smith: Press freedom and decent values can go together Phone hacking is a symptom of a bullying aggressive newsroom culture The Independent Friday, 14 October 2011 The British press is the finest in the world. The British press has gone a bit wrong, but all that's needed is a few tweaks to sort the whole thing out. Alternatively, the real fault lies with the Prime Minister, who set up a public inquiry to divert attention from his own bad judgement in hiring Andy Coulson. I'm not endorsing any of these arguments, you understand. I'm summarising what I've heard during two days of seminars organised by Lord Justice Leveson, before his inquiry gets properly under way. To give you a flavour of the proceedings, here's former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie: "God help me that free speech comes down to the thought process of a judge who couldn't win when prosecuting counsel against Ken Dodd for tax evasion... It's that bad." Free speech. Ah yes, we all believe in that, don't we? I certainly do, and I know plenty of journalists who've suffered at the hands of repressive foreign regimes while trying to exercise their right to free expression; for four years I chaired the English PEN Writers in Prison Committee, which allowed me to hear harrowing stories of beatings and torture in Iran, Syria, Vietnam and too many other countries to mention. If you had arrived at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in Westminster from Mars to take part in the Leveson seminars, what I've just said might surprise you. The outbreak of high-mindedness marks a sensational change in the priorities of the popular press; suddenly everyone is talking about the horrors endured by journalists in Zimbabwe, as though those of us who are the least bit critical of tabloid culture are itching to impose a regulatory regime as oppressive as Robert Mugabe's. Actually, I'm delighted the Daily Mail occasionally writes about Zimbabwe but I don't think I'm about to see a rash of stories in the popular press about forced labour camps in Uzbekistan. Back on planet Earth, matters look a little different. It's not just that MacKenzie's throwaway remark about free speech comes from a man whose paper had to apologise for its shameful coverage of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. Let's not forget that led to a condemnation by the Press Complaints Commission, a boycott of The Sun on Merseyside, and a belated front-page apology for "the most terrible mistake" in its history. It's that all the impassioned talk about free expression, condemnations of "criminality" at the News of the World and debates aboutmedia regulation have been a diversion from the real story. Phone hacking is bad enough in itself, whether it happened in one "rogue" newsroom – the current red-top defence – or was a great deal more widespread. But it's also a symptom of a wider malaise in certain sections of the press: the existence of a bullying, aggressive newsroom culture that's forgotten that stories are about living, breathing and sometimes vulnerable people. I made this point at the first Leveson seminar and since then two distinguished tabloid journalists have told me my anxieties are shared in the popular press. A former tabloid reporter, Richard Peppiatt, told the Leveson inquiry that tabloid newsrooms "are often bullying and aggressive environments". I suspect they're also very macho, and that women have to subscribe to the prevailing insensitivity if they want to get on in that world. The phone-hacking scandal shows how easy it has become for unscrupulous reporters to assemble stories at arm's length; some victims of phone hacking by the News of the World had no idea they were under surveillance, or that their voicemails had been intercepted, until they were approached by officers from the Metropolitan Police this year. How extensive this spying operation has turned out to be is illustrated by my own experience: I'm hardly a major public figure but in May I met two officers from Operation Weeting and was shown photocopies of pages Mulcaire compiled about me and my then boyfriend as long ago as 2004. I can recall the symptoms of shock as I realised the surveillance had begun shortly after a devastating tragedy in my partner's family. Lord Leveson has designated me a "core participant" in his inquiry, and I've begun proceedings against the News of the World's parent company for breach of privacy. The scandal goes way beyond interception of voicemail messages. I suspect that psychologists would describe what happens in some newsrooms as "depersonalisation", an attitude that strips crime victims, celebrities and people like myself of humanity. Technology has undoubtedly made it easier to collect personal information from social networking sites where the unwary – Amanda Knox, for instance, who has lived to regret mentioning her nickname "Foxy Knoxy" – place trivial but damaging snippets about themselves. But the result is that popular newspapers are full of caricatures, two-dimensional figures whose own mothers would barely recognise them. This isn't an argument for state regulation or licensing of the press; it's about the need for a change in the values that inform the behaviour of too many reporters and editors. Listening to Kelvin MacKenzie this week, I couldn't help thinking he embodies everything that's wrong with tabloid newsrooms. This is a big ask for Leveson, but I just hope his inquiry can restore some of the compassion and ethics that brought many of us into journalism in the first place. www.politicalblonde.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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