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1 online resource (streaming video file) (26 min. 44 sec.) ; 161569719 bytes |
| Summary |
How low could they go and how high did it reach? Like a cluster bomb, the phone hacking scandal keeps on exploding, taking more and more casualties, killing The News Of The World - one of the world's most successful tabloids - and shaking a very powerful global media empire. Late last year we investigated the scandal in the program 'Allo, Allo, Allo'. Now as the scandal spins wider and reaches higher we return with more on this extraordinary drama.Paul McMullan was once a senior editor with News of the World and late last year he became one of the few to confess to a practice long suspected to be rampant among his paper's reporting staff. He told us he regularly hacked into the mobile phone message banks of celebrities, listened to the recordings and turned anything he thought interesting or - even better - scandalous, into scoops for his racy tabloid.'It was a tool of the trade. You were not just expected to do it; you were expected to get a story. My main criticism of phone hacking is by and large it was rubbish. I mean you got really rubbish information. You got stuff like 'I'm just going out to Tesco's to get a pint of milk, would you like anything else luv?' Well that's not great is it? It's not like, 'Oh, I'm just smuggling in some plutonium.' - Paul McMullan - former News of The World stafferBut in recent weeks it's been revealed the practice went way beyond entertainers, sports stars and even politicians. News of The World reporters hacked into the message bank of a murdered teenager (even deleting messages in the hope of getting more); the phones of relatives of servicemen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan; and even may have fished around in the private phone messages of families of victims killed in the London Tube terror attacks.The latest revelations instantly transformed a story about grubby celebrity stalking into a sickening and sordid one that has shocked the British public, shaken the political and business establishment and dramatically rocked the tectonic plates under Rupert Murdoch's global media empire.Murdoch and his son James have shut down the big circulating News Of the World, former editor Andy Coulson - until recently media advisor to British PM David Cameron has been arrested and speculation is intensifying about who knew what about the widespread practice and how high that knowledge reached.'The police gave me the expression '6000 victims'. There is no doubt whatsoever that there were many of the reporters who were doing these things. It wasn't just one. They give the effective lie to say it was a rogue reporter but however often you repeat a lie it does not become true. It's as plausible as there being a chief fairy or a Santa Claus'. - Mark Lewis, Lawyer for phone hacking victimsAs the scandal spins ever wider Foreign Correspondent's Eric Campbell rejoins the drama from the revelations of our 2010 story to the explosive new developments testing one of the world's most powerful men, scorching the son who's taking the reins and threatening one of the biggest media deals on the planet - and Murdoch's bid to gobble up all of the big TV money-spinner BSkyB |
| Event |
Broadcast 2011-07-12 at 20:00:00 |
| Notes |
Classification: NC |
| Subject |
Hacktivism.
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News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal (Great Britain : 2000-2012)
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Terrorism victims' families.
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Victims of crimes.
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Wiretapping.
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England -- London.
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Streaming video
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| Author |
Cameron, David, contributor
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Campbell, Eric, host
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Hewlett, Steve, contributor
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Lewis, Mark, contributor
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McMullan, Paul, contributor
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Murdoch, James, contributor
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Watson, Tom, contributor
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