Hacking and News of the World

Thursday 7th July 2011.  Remember this date.  This was a date when 168 years of history was wiped out with one stroke of a pen.  Regardless of what you may think about the News of the World, and there are plenty of people like me who would not be seen dead reading it, the sudden demise of this paper came as a shock to everyone who had been following this story.

News International had been under intense pressure in the days leading up to this announcement.  The hacking scandal which at first seemed to be limited to the rich and famous suddenly disgusted an entire population as it became apparent that murder victims and families of terrorist victims and dead soldiers also had their phones hacked.  The question was what would Rupert Murdoch and his media empire do?  Most people demanded the former editor of News of the World and now a chief executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks, to resign.  What nobody expected was that she would stay in place and the News of the World would become the biggest and, dare I say, least mourned victim of this scandal.

I suppose the question is what happens next?  At one point there didn’t seem to be an end to the daily revelations of hacking allegations.  Questions are still to be answered over another former editor, Andy Coulson, who has had to resign from two jobs, one as editor of the News of the World and the other, embarrassingly for the government as the Prime Minister’s communication chief.  Coulson was editor when the vast majority of the hacking was alleged to have taken place and further questions are being raised as to whether he committed perjury in the Thomas Sheridan trial.  In this trial he was asked whether he sanctioned any payments to police officers, he replied with “no, not to my knowledge.”  E-mails have since been discovered that police were paid for stories by the News of the World and these were sanctioned by Coulson.

There is also a suspicion that the closure of the News of the World is nothing more than a cynical act by Rupert Murdoch to save his bid to buy BSkyB as questions were being raised as to whether News International was a fit enough company to own Britain’s biggest, by revenue, broadcaster.  It transpired that following the announcement the News of the World was closing that the  name Sun on Sunday had been trademarked.  Word spread that he was closing this newspaper to show he had acted quickly and that his company should still be allowed to purchase BSkyB.  All very cynical and all very unfair to the journalists who now work at the News of the World and had nothing at all to do with the phone hacking.

Rebekah Brooks’ job seems safe.  James Murdoch in an interview with Sky News said he had every confidence in her and in her ethics.  This led Lord Prescott later to wonder out loud whether “she knows where all the dead bodies lie.”  The Prime Minister has ordered an independent enquiry.  This is the least we expected.  There are an awful lot of questions that need answering.  Exactly what knowledge did the people at the very top have of the phone hacking?  If they had none at all then why not and surely this alone proves that News International is not fit enough to own BSkyB.  How far does corruption go in the Met Police?  Did any of the payments made to the police actually prejudice any of the trials?  Did the hacking of MPs put national security at risk?  I think we can be pretty sure that when they hacked Lord Prescott’s phone they heard more than a discussion about what he had planned for tea.  The final question that I would like to raise is this.  Why do our politicians, both Labour and Conservative, feel the need to get into bed with Murdoch and has, heaven forbid, any politician benefited from this phone hacking?  Yes, I know he is a powerful media mogul and getting his papers on side can tip elections but surely now is the time for them to treat the electorate as grown ups.  We can make up our own minds who to vote for without The Sun telling us.