"Ex-editor details brazen tactics; But executive at Murdoch tabloid defends actions" November 30, 2011|By Sarah Lyall, New York Times
LONDON - He admitted that he and his colleagues hacked into people’s phones and paid police officers for tips. He confessed to lurking in unmarked vans outside people’s houses, stealing confidential documents, rifling through celebrity garbage cans, and pretending that he was not a journalist pursuing a story but “Brad the teenage rent boy,’’ propositioning a priest.
After Paul McMullan, a former deputy features editor at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World tabloid, had finished his brazen remarks at a judicial inquiry yesterday, it was hard to think of any dubious news-gathering technique he had not confessed to, short of pistol-whipping sources for information.
As opposed to what, accepting and running a government handout?
Nor were the practices he described limited to a select few, McMullan said in an afternoon of testimony at the Leveson Inquiry, which is investigating media ethics in Britain after the phone-hacking scandal broke this past summer.
On the contrary, he said, News of the World’s underlings were encouraged by their circulation-obsessed bosses to use any means necessary to get material.
“We did all these things for our editors, for Rebekah Brooks and for Andy Coulson,’’ McMullan said, referring to two former News of the World editors who, he said, “should have had the strength of conviction to say, ‘Yes, sometimes you have to stray into black or gray illegal areas.’ ’’
He added: “They should have been the heroes of journalism, but they aren’t. They are the scum of journalism for trying to drop me and my colleagues in it.’’
Coulson, who resigned from his job as chief spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron in January, and Brooks, who resigned in July from her job as chief executive of News International, the British newspaper arm of the Murdoch empire, have both been arrested on suspicion of phone hacking, or illegally intercepting voice-mail messages. Brooks, whom McMullan called “the archcriminal,’’ is also suspected of making illegal payments to police.
I want to hear more about that!
Both have repeatedly denied the allegations, and neither has yet been charged.
Nothing that McMullan said was particularly surprising; anyone following the phone-hacking scandal that engulfed News International and its parent, News Corp., over the summer is now more than familiar with outrageous tales of tabloid malfeasance.
What was startling was that McMullan, who left his job in 2001, eagerly confessed to so much and on such a scale - no one else has done it quite this way - and that he maintained that none of it was wrong.
Most people from the tabloid world have reacted to the revelations in the manner of Renault when discussing gambling in “Casablanca,’’ saying they are “shocked, shocked.’’ But McMullan veered so far in the other direction that at times he sounded like a satirist’s rendition of an amoral tabloid hack.
Underhanded reporting techniques are not shocking at all, he said, particularly in light of how often he and his colleagues risked their lives in search of the truth.
As examples of the dangers of his job, he described having cocaine-laced marijuana forced on him by knife-wielding drug dealers in a sting operation; being attacked by a crowd of murderous asylum seekers; and, in his “Brad the teenage rent boy’’ guise, sprinting through a convent dressed only in underpants to escape the pedophile priest he had successfully entrapped.
“Phone hacking is a perfectly acceptable tool, given the sacrifices we make, if all we’re trying to do is get to the truth,’’ McMullan said, asking whether “we really want to live in a world where the only people who can do the hacking are MI5 and MI6,’’ referring to British intelligence agencies.
He has a point there, although I would prefer a world with no hackers at all.
Why doesn't government go after the porn and pedophile sites?
No, he said, we do not.
‘’For a brief period of about 20 years we have actually lived in a free society where we can hack back,’’ he said.
Journalists in Britain have traditionally justified shady practices by arguing that they are in “the public interest.’’ Asked by an inquiry lawyer how he would define that, McMullan said that the public interest is what the public is interested in.
My problem is they never did it in the service of exposing war-criminal liars and looters.
McMullan, who now owns a pub and does occasional freelance work, spoke nostalgically of his tabloid career, seven years of it spent at News of the World....
McMullan called privacy “evil,’’ in that it helps criminals cover up their misdeeds. Using a Britishism for pedophile, he said: “Privacy is for pedos.’’
He's a fascist.
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"UK police investigate hacking of ex-official; Former Blair aide rips into press" December 01, 2011|By Jill Lawless, Associated Press
LONDON - A small number of journalists have disgraced Britain’s press, Tony Blair’s former communications chief told a media ethics inquiry, as a former government minister said detectives were investigating whether his computers had been hacked by a tabloid newspaper.
No, the agenda-pushing lies have done that.
Former Downing Street aide Alastair Campbell said yesterday that journalists who had hacked into the phones of celebrities, royals, politicians, and crime victims had besmirched the name of almost every other reporter in the country....
Police investigating phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct tabloid News of the World have set up a parallel probe into whether computers were also targeted. Last week detectives arrested a 52-year-old man on suspicion of possible Computer Misuse Act offenses.
Yeah, right, police are investigating something they were involved in, uh-huh.
Murdoch’s News International said it was cooperating fully with the police investigations.
Prime Minister David Cameron set up the media inquiry after it became clear that the News of the World had illegally eavesdropped on the voicemails of Milly Dowler, 13, a schoolgirl who was abducted and murdered in 2002.
Government commissions + crap cover-ups. Sorry.
That revelation shocked many Britons and shined a light on previously little-examined illicit press practices....
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"Private investigator arrested in phone hacking inquiry; His notes are at the center of tabloid scandal" December 08, 2011|By Alan Cowell and Ravi Somaiya, New York Times
LONDON - The British police said yesterday that a 41-year-old man had been arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandal that has rocked Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. British news media identified the man as Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective at the center of the scandal.
The arrest is the 18th since inquiries into accusations that Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid sought scoops by intercepting the voicemails of celebrities and other newsworthy figures intensified last January. The BBC and the Guardian, among others, identified the man as Mulcaire, a private investigator once employed by the newspaper who was jailed in 2007 for hacking the phones of the British royal family and has been frequently cited as a pivotal figure in the affair....
The arrest yesterday came a week after a 31-year-old woman was detained in the same investigation in the northeast of England. Scotland Yard declined to identify the woman, or to provide further information, but the BBC and other British news media identified her as Bethany Usher, a former News of the World reporter who is currently a lecturer in journalism at Teesside University.
She was released on bail soon after her arrest.
In a statement, she denied the hacking allegations.
“I worked for national newspapers between 2005 and 2008, spending two of those years at the News of the World, working largely on the road in the north of England. At no time did I work in the Wapping office, and I had little contact with other colleagues,’’ Usher said. Wapping is the location of the newspaper’s head office.
“I have never been involved in the interception of telecommunications in any way and strictly adhered to the Press Complaints Commission code of practice,’’ she added. The Press Complaints Commission is the body by which British newspapers regulate themselves. “However, I became disillusioned through working with some who saw human suffering simply as fodder to fill pages. As such, I made the decision to find an alternative career.’’
The police announced in late November that they had made the first arrest in a related investigation into computer hacking. A 52-year-old man was detained on the outskirts of London on suspicion of unspecified offenses involving computer misuse and invasion of privacy. He has not been identified by name, but was granted bail until December....
Knowing the way newspapers and governments operate, he must be Jewish or Israeli.
As the affair has unfolded, it has raised questions not only about the press but also about journalists’ relationships with the police and politicians.
And the AmeriKan media ends it there without asking the questions.
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I can't get this phone to work; let's see what is on CNN:
"CNN host Piers Morgan denies tie to hacking" by Alan Cowell | New York Times, December 21, 2011
LONDON - The government panel investigating the behavior of the British press conducted an unusual trans-Atlantic interrogation yesterday of Piers Morgan, who is well-known as a former editor associated with controversy and as a CNN talk-show host.
Morgan, testifying through a video link from the United States, where he is now based, was questioned about practices at the Daily Mirror, which he edited for nearly a decade until 2004. Asked if any telephone hacking by journalists had been conducted during his tenure, he repeated earlier denials of such wrongdoing....
In a separate development, News International, the British arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, News Corp., announced yesterday that it had settled seven more legal claims brought by well-known people who said their voice mail had been illegally intercepted by News of the World.
The seven included two former British lawmakers; James Hewitt, a former British army officer who acknowledged having an affair with Diana, princess of Wales; and Paul Dadge, a man caught up in the July 7 terrorist attacks in London.
The company did not disclose the settlement terms. In previous settlements the company has agreed to pay amounts ranging from $30,000 to $4.6 million. In its statement yesterday, News International said it had “expressed regret for the distress caused.’’
More than 100 lawsuits related to phone hacking have been brought so far, according to court documents. News International has also set up a plan to offer compensation out of court to victims of such intercepts, thought by police to number around 800.
Morgan was an editor at News of the World in 1994 and 1995, but the inquiry yesterday focused more on Morgan’s time as editor of The Daily Mirror, a tabloid not connected to the Murdoch empire.
Morgan was dismissed from The Daily Mirror in 2004 after it printed fake photographs purporting to show British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners. He then turned to a new career as a television talent-show judge and talk-show host.
Related: You Can Not Trust Your TV
I've been convinced for some time now that ALL "MSM" NEWS MEDIA is in fact a SCRIPTED and STAGED exercise.
In November, he announced that he was quitting NBC’s “America’s Got Talent’’ to concentrate on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight.’’
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Also see: Britain's Tabloid Testimony
British Phone Booth
Sorry, readers, I've got another call.
