From being synonymous with “Everything about everything” to be termed as “A stain on the character of British journalism”20 by Britain’s Labor party leader Ed Miliband, the journey of NoTW has indeed been a roller coaster amid series of scandals, allegations and public outrage. Although the practices followed at NoTW since its inception was focused on getting to the base of the news at any cost, the means followed were not given much importance. NoTW only focused on getting the intricate details of the various episodes, which fetched the company more readership in turn.
To get the sleazy information that could be formed into news, NoTW, with help of some private investigating agencies, hacked into the voicemails21 of many public fi gures including Royal family members, celebrities and even victims of crime and terrorism. When these practices came to light, the outrage from public and authorities not only led to death of the tabloid but also had a major impact on future business decisions like the UK government interfering in the buyout process of the broadcaster BskyB.
20 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14030041
21 http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/07/06/uk-tabloid-hacking-outrage-grows?videoId=216818603
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The Episode of Phone Hacking of Milly Dowler – “The Last Nail in the Coffin”
22NoTW was also accused of hacking into the voicemail of Milly Dowler. She was a 13-year-old school- girl who disappeared in 2002.
At that time, NoTW was under the command of Rebekah Brooks, the then chief editor. It was later discovered that Milly was sexually assaulted and then brutally murdered. A nightclub doorman, Levi Bellfi eld was later convicted of her murder.
Mark Lewis who was Milly’s lawyer gave the statement that Glenn Mulcaire (private investigator working with NoTW) had hacked into her voicemail after she disappeared. Soon after the newspaper hacked into Milly's voicemail, they further deleted messages after her mailbox became full.
Not only had the people at NoTW destroyed evidence, which included the messages after she had disappeared, but also when friends and relatives of Milly found out that her mailbox was no longer full, it gave them a false hope that the girl may still be alive.
Another newspaper The Guardian also disclosed that the NoTW had employed another private in- vestigator, Steve Whittamore, who illegally obtained ex-directory numbers for families with the name
“Dowler” living in Walton-on-Thames, the same place where Milly’s family lived. The irony of the situation was that the Dowler family had given an interview to NoTW in which they had expressed their hope for Milly’s survival. However, they were unaware of the fact that it had been falsely kindled by the tabloid itself.
The Milly Dowler murder trial has recently fi nished, and it might go on to become the most talked about murder trials in the UK this decade. Since the Dowler family was deceived by the newspaper, they went on to become the sympathetic victims after the tragedy.
Moreover, during the time of turmoil, the power backing was also futile as the administrators in the sys- tem had no option but to stand against the corruption charges to defend their position. Similar sentiments were shown by John Whittingdale23 (Head of British Parliamentary Committee) and PM David Cameron, when they said that James Murdoch had to clarify his stand in the parliament during a legal hearing.
During the hearing, Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch, who was made chief executive of News Corp.’s Asian and European operations24 in 2007, tried to defend the News Corp. by claiming that they were completely unaware of the extent to which hacking was done. On the other hand, a former executive at News International claimed that James Murdoch was informed of all the hacking-related activities in 2008.24 In the US, some members of the Congress and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) demanded investigation and congressional hearing to determine whether News Corp.
violated the rules set out by the Federal Communication Commission.25
This imbroglio had a major impact on the fortunes of Rupert Murdoch’s children as well. The tainted image badly affected the credibility of Murdoch scions Elisabeth,26 Lachlan and James27 as anyone
22 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14017661
23 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/john-whittingdale-i-am-not-too-close-to-murdochs-2315410.
html
24 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8677065/Phone-hacking-timeline-of-a-scandal.html
25 http://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-fi lings/entry/crew-calls-for-congressional-investigation-into-news-corp
26 http://www.deadline.com/2011/08/scandal-sinks-plan-for-elisabeth-murdoch-to-join-news-corp-board-for- now/
27 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/28/business/fi -ct-james-murdoch-20110729
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among them taking over the reins of the company would send out negative signals to the international business circuit.
This gives Chase Carey, the current president and deputy chairman of News Corp., an edge as he is held in high regard in the business arena and is among the very few of News Corp. people who came out clean out of this whole mess.
Some of the other major issues covered by NoTW:
Anti-pedophile campaign (2000)
This campaign was started by Rebekah Brooks at NoTW to expose and defame the pedophiles to the public.28 The paper’s continuous reinforcement about the issue led to some actions being taken against the convicts in the beginning. But at the same time there was huge public outrage due to certain cases of mistaken identities, which resulted in making them victims of public wrath. In one such case, the house of a pediatrician was devastated by a mob just because it thought she was one among them. Also, another man faced the same situation just because he looked similar to a person shown by NoTW.
Various phone-hacking scandals
Since the only thing that was most important to the editors at NoTW was news, the journalists forgot to draw the line between the means to obtain such news.29 In this bid to be the best, NoTW journalists illegally hacked phones of many renowned individuals including politicians, celebrities, sports stars and royal aides, to get access to their private lives and further make it public just to justify that they know everything about everything.
In 2006, reporters at NoTW with the help of from some private investigators succeeded in gain- ing access to personal lives of many people who were of any interest to the readers by hacking their voicemails.
Fake sheikh
In August 2010, Mazher Mahmood,30 a reporter with NoTW, pretended to be an Arab sheikh to uncover many celebrities who were involved in the drug racket. He got access to the VIP parties, which were a camp for these activities. Furthermore, he exposed a cricket bookie, Mazher Majeed, who was speculating spot-fi xing allegations against a Pakistani player during their tour of England in 2010.
Links to Police Corruption
In order to report news by the means explained above, there was always an apprehension of some legal action in case some news leaked out. In order to mitigate the risk, NoTW had developed links with some infl uential police offi cers,31 who were bribed to get the cases out of vigilance and hence a clean chit.
Many such instances came to light during the investigation.
Many senior offi cials like MET’s commissioner and the assistant commissioner were found to be in close relation with the aides of NoTW and were found socializing together adequate number of times to testify a close relation between them. In an interview, the former editor of NoTW Paul McMullan
28 http://www.thefi rstpost.co.uk/81262,people,news,rebekah-brooks-from-secretary-to-controversy?lost=1
29 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/news-of-the-world-sean-hoare
30 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3690886.stm
31 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2011861/News-World-phone-hacking-Rupert-Murdochs-links-crim- inal-underworld.html
News of the World 95
admitted of using material and information on Jennifer Elliot,32 daughter of actor Denholm Elliot, to publish news about her, which was obtained by brining police offi cers. These articles were very deroga- tory and in the words of Paul McMullan were to some extent responsible for Jennifer Elliot’s suicide as well.
Defamation Actions
NoTW was dragged to court in 2005 for defamation damages by England footballer David Beck-
ham33 and his spouse for a misleading article claiming that their marriage was in trouble. The case was later settled out of the court in 2006.
In April 2006, NoTW had to pay £100,000 as compensation to England footballer Wayne Rooney
for publishing false news that claimed Rooney had slapped Coleen (then his fi ancée and now his wife).34
In 2006, England footballer Ashley Cole received £100,000 as damages from NoTW and The Sun
(sister paper of NoTW) for a libel news article against him, which alleged Cole of using cell phone in place of gay sex toy and this news was published a week before his marriage to pop star Cheryl Tweedy.35
A “privacy invasion” case was fi led against NoTW by Max Mosley, President of the Fédération
Internationale de l’Automobile, alleging him of being involved in sadomasochistic sex with various prostitutes by NoTW. The result was declared in favor of Mosley and he was awarded approxi- mately £60,000 in damages.36
In June 2011, Pakistani cricketer Yasir Hameed was declared victorious by the UK Press Com-
plaint Commission (PCC) and NoTW was ordered to remove articles from its website related to match-fi xing allegations on Hameed.37
Also in 2011, NoTW had to settle a law suit fi led against them by footballer Artur Boruc, who
charged the newspaper of untrue allegations of him being unfaithful to his girlfriend. He was awarded £70,000 in damages.38