The News

International
Scandal

Bribery. Hacking. Wire tapping. Lies. Excuses.

Table of Contents

Introduction : Murdoch, the Media Mogul

The Phone Hacking Scandal Unfolds

New Allegations: The Plot Thickens

Closure of the News of the World

The Aftermath: Outlook and Impact

Case Summary : The Ethical Perspective

Introduction

Murdoch: The Media Mogul

Industry

: Mass media

Fate
Corp

: Assets Split Into 21st Century Fox and News

Successors

: 21st Century Fox, News Corp

Founders

: Rupert Murdoch

Defunct

: June 28, 2013

Area served

: Worldwide

Key people
Carey

: Rupert Murdoch(Chairman and CEO), Chase

(President & COO)

Product
: Cable network programming, filmed
entertainment,
television, direct broadcast satellite
television, publishing.
Revenue
Employees

: US$ 33.706 billion (2012)

: 47,650 (2012)

What is the Phone Hacking

Scandal?
2006-07: Clive Goodman, editor, and Glenn
Mulcaire, private investigator convicted of
intercepting voicemail messagesleft for royal
aides and jailed.
2009: the Guardian reports that News
International made confidential settlements
totalling 1m to three victims
September 2010: a string of well-known people
begin legal moves.
January 2011: the Metropolitan Police launched
Operation Weeting (discussed in detail later).
The investigation widens to include allegations of
improper payments to public officials, computer
hacking and 4000 cases of phone hacking

Rupert Murdoch

The Phone Hacking Scandal Unfolds

Operation Nigeria
Former police officer Jonathan Rees suspected for
murder of a private investigator.
Police undertook investigation and tapped his
telephone.

Jonathan Rees

Evidence of purchasing and selling information to

the News of the World paying him 150,000 (AED
900,000) yearly.
Rees and his team arrested and serving five
years prison sentence.

Daniel Morgan

Operation Glade

Private detectives hacked the police national

computer ; anti-corruption unit initiated
Operation Glade.
Steve Whittamore, a private detective, hacked
and sold informarion to 28 journalists of the
news of the world
Whittamore served 2 years in prison
No journalists were charged.

Steve Whittamore

The Royal Phone Hacking Scandal

(2006)
Impossible leaks :
- Prince William borrowed an editing suite from ITV
correspondent Tom Bradby.
- Emergency appointment with his knee surgeon.
31st January 2006 -Police concluded voicemail accounts
of Princes aides hacked by reporters of the News of the
World .

Prince
William

8th March 2006 -The Police raided the News of the World .
Seized documents listing 4000 celebrities,members of
the royal family, politicians, sports stars, crime victims
etc being hacked.

26th June 2006 -Clive Goodman and Mulcaire found

guilty hacking, arrested and charged 6 years prison.

Tom Bradby

Operation Weeting

The Metropolitan Police announced on 26

January 2011 that it would begin a new
investigation into phone hacking, following
the receipt of "significant new information"
regarding the conduct of News of the World
employees.

The operation was led by Deputy Assistant

Commissioner Sue Akers, Head of Organised
Crime & Criminal Networks within the
Specialist Crime Directorate.

Between 45 and 60 officers began looking

over the 11,000 pages of evidence seized
from Mulcaire in August 2006.

Operation Weeting- Arrests

As of 13 March 2012, 23 people had been arrested as part of

Operation Weeting.

The first arrests as part of Operation Weeting were made on 5 April

2011. Ian Edmondson and the News of the World' s chief reporter
Neville Thurlbeck were arrested on suspicion of unlawfully
intercepting voicemail messages.

Clive Goodman

Other people arrested included :

Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor

Clive Goodman, a former News of the World royal editor who

had previously been jailed in January 2007

Rebekah Brooks, News International chief executive and

former News of the World editor.

Ian Edmondson

July 2011: New

Allegations The
Plot Thickens

Milly Dowlers Voicemail

It was first reported by The Guardian on 4
July 2011 that police had found evidence
suggesting that the private investigator
Glenn Mulcaire collected personal
information about the family of the
missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, following
her disappearance in March 2002 and the
subsequent discovery of her body six
months later.

According to the paper, journalists

working for the News of the World had
hired private investigators to hack into
Dowler's voicemail inbox while she was
still missing.

Milly Dowler

Milly Dowlers Voicemail.continued

It was alleged that they had deleted some messages, giving false
hope to police and to Dowler's family.

They thought that she might have deleted the messages herself
and therefore might still be alive, and potentially destroying
valuable evidence about her abduction and murderer.

Reacting to the revelation, Prime Minister David Cameron said that

the alleged hacking, if true, was "truly dreadful". He added that
police ought to pursue a "vigorous" investigation to ascertain what
had taken place.

In January 2012 it was revealed that Surrey Police knew soon after
Dowler's death that News of the World staff had accessed her
mobile phone messages.

David Cameron

British Soldiers Families Hacked

On 6 July 2011, The Daily Telegraph reported

that the voicemail accounts of some relatives of
British soldiers killed in action in Iraq since 2003
and Afghanistan since 2001 may have been
accessed by the News of the World.

The personal details and phone numbers

belonging to relatives of dead service personnel
were found in the Glen Mulcaire's files.

In response to the allegations, The Royal British

Legion announced that it would suspend all ties
with the News of the World, dropping the
newspaper as its campaigning partner.

Glen Mulcaire

7/7 Victims Families Hacked

On the day before the sixth anniversary of the 7 July 2005 London
bombings, it was reported that relatives of some victims may have had
their telephones accessed by the News of the World in the aftermath of
the attacks.

Sara Payne
On 28 July, The Guardian reported that the News of the World
hacked into the voicemail of media campaigner Sara Payne, whose
seven-year-old daughter, Sarah Payne, was murdered in West
Sussex by pedophile Roy Whiting in July 2000.

Sara Payne

This news was arguably met with even more public

Scotland Yard had reportedly found materials pertaining to Payne in
Glenn Mulcaire's notes. They also discovered that Payne's voicemail
was on a mobile phone given to her by Brooks.

Sarah Payne

The Closure and The Apology

The Leveson Inquiry

Amidst the new allegations, several names were
convicted
There were high profile resignations too
A 2000 page report was published with its
findings and recommendations
Two amendments implemented which are worth
noting are to:
- Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
- Computer Misuse Act 1990

Closure of the News of the World

July 2011: Big companies pulled their ads from the
News of the World in response to the controversy.
7th July 2011: James Murdoch announced that after
168 years in print the News of the World would
publish its last-ever edition on 10 July, with the loss
of 200 jobs.
22nd August 2011: Wireless Generation, subsidiary
of News Corporation, lost contract with New York
State.
26th February 2012: The Sun on Sunday replaced
sister paper News of the World.
A number of senior employees and executives
resigned after the then new allegations.

The Apologies
From 15th July: News Corp changed
position through series of public
apologies.
16th-17th July: News International
published two full-page apologies in
national newspapers.
The First Apology- sorry for the
serious wrongdoing.
The Second Apology- "Putting right
what's gone wrong.
18th July: Harbottle & Lewis, the
group's legal advisers, issued open
letter outlining its position; appointed
Luther Pendragon to handle PR issues .

The Aftermath: Outlook & Impact

The Ethical Concerns

The effect of the phone hacking scandal originating with
theNews of the Worldalso raised wider questions about the
ethics employed by companies under Murdoch's ownership, as
well as the effects the scandal will have on the ethics employed
specifically by print journalists and to some extent the wider
world of journalism.

In Newsweek in July 2011, one of Murdoch's former top

executives was quoted as saying: " Murdoch invented and
established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever
it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the
competition, and the end will justify the means."

Stephen B. Shepard, dean of the CUNY Graduate School of

Journalism, commenting on the phone hacking scandal, said: "It's
wrong. It's not a grey area. There's no defence for it. Even the
government needs a warrant to get into a house or a computer.
You can't break into something like this and get away with it.

The Impact in Other Countries

It created ripples in the media all over the world. The publics
view and trust in the media has been changed by the phone
hacking scandal.
AUSTRALIA : John Hartigan, the CEO of News Corporation's
Australian companyNews Limited, announced a review of all
payments in the previous three years, and that he was
personally willing to co-operate with any Australian Government
led inquiry.
UNITED STATES : News Corporation is headquartered and
operates multiple media outlets, theFederal Bureau of
Investigationlaunched a probe on 14 July 2011, to determine
whether News Corporation accessed voicemails of victims of
the9/11 attacks. On 15 July, US Attorney GeneralEric
Holderannounced an additional investigation by the
Department of Justice, looking into whether the company had
violated theForeign Corrupt Practices Act.

Ethical Theories Questioned

Utilitarianism

Right to Privacy

Whistle Blowing

Case Summary

The Era of
Yellow
Journalism

Rupert
Murdoch : The
Criminal
Mastermind

The principle purpose of business is not

to make profit. Profit is the engine that
takes the business forward but its not
the destination of business. Profit is only
a means to some end; its not an end in
itself.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/24/world/europe/uk-phone-hackingscandal-fast-facts/

http://www.poynter.org/mediawire/top-stories/139689/explainer-newscorp-phone-hacking-scandal/

http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/ethics_online/0071.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/rupert-murdoch-phone-hacking-guide2011-7

http://fleishman.com.au/2011/09/the-phone-hacking-scandal-and-itsimpact-on-the-media/

Ethics and the Conduct of Business, Pearson Edition, Fifth Edition,

Indian Reprint 2007