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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-new-revelations-of-the-murdoch-empires-underbelly-from-the-hacks-real-life-journalist-265756>
"This is the humblest day of my life, declared Rupert Murdoch to a
parliamentary committee on July 19, 2011. This was at the height of what the
newspaper historian Roy Greenslade called “the most astonishing 14 days in
British press history, with daily shock heaped upon daily shock”.
These dramatic events are now the subject of a series on
Stan. Journalist
Nick Davies recounted them in his 2014 book,
Hack Attack: How the Truth caught
up with Rupert Murdoch. That book has now been reissued with a new afterword,
exploring the developments and revelations over the last decade. I have read
the new chapter, and it casts yet more light on the Murdoch company’s
extraordinary behaviour.
It began on July 5 2011, when Davies published an article in the
Guardian
saying Murdoch’s Sunday paper, the
News of the World, had tapped teenage
murder victim Milly Dowler’s phone. The scandal had been building – very slowly
and far from surely – for almost five years, since August 2006, when a
News of
the World reporter and a private investigator were arrested for having tapped
the phones of Princes William and Harry, and their entourages.
The investigative work of Davies and the editorial courage of the
Guardian
bore little immediate fruit during those years. But the dam wall broke when
they published the story of a cynical newspaper tapping the phone of a teenage
murder victim.
Politicians competed with each other in the ferocity of their denunciations.
News International closed the
News of the World, and in the face of
opposition from all three major political parties, Murdoch abandoned his
attempt to raise his ownership of satellite broadcaster BSkyB from 39% to 100%,
which would have been the largest deal in his history. On successive days,
London’s chief police officer and one of his deputies resigned because of their
close relations with Murdoch papers. Rupert and James were forced to appear
before a parliamentary committee, televised live.
Last, but far from least, Prime Minister David Cameron launched an inquiry, to
be directed by Lord Leveson, to examine the scandal and the issues it raised.
The ensuing Leveson Inquiry, which ran over 2011 and 2012, was the biggest
inquiry ever held into the British press.
It held oral hearings for around nine months, starting in November 2011, and
heard from 337 witnesses, including then prime minister Cameron, former prime
ministers Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major, future prime ministers
Theresa May and Keir Starmer, and other political and media figures, before
publishing a 2,000-page report in November 2012.
The police also sprang into action. Operation Weeting was a police taskforce
set up to investigate phone hacking at the
News of the World, from January
2011. In June, Operation Elveden was set up to investigate bribes by the paper
to police, while Operation Tuletta was set up to investigate computer hacking."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
