International   

Guardian journalist backs up report

LONDON: Owners of the British tabloid News of the World have been accused of a “cover-up” over allegations of widespread phone-hacking by its staff as part of an illegal news-gathering operation.

Deposing before a parliamentary committee investigating the allegations, Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who broke the story, produced documents in support of his claims.

Rupert Murdoch’s News International, which owns NoW, has denied “systematic” use of illegal methods by the newspaper’s reporters and accused The Guardian of being “selective and misleading”.

Responding to the company’s denial, Mr. Davies told MPs: “News International have been involved in covering up their journalists’ involvement with private investigators who are breaking the law.”

The Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger said: “This is not a campaign to oust anyone, to reopen the police inquiry, for more prosecutions [or to] force anyone to resign. We have not called for any of those.” One of the key questions, he said, was whether self regulation of the press was “effective”.

The role of the former NoW Editor, Andy Coulson, who is now Tory leader David Cameron’s director of communications, also figured at the hearings. Mr. Coulson was forced to quit the tabloid after its royal correspondent Clive Goodman was jailed in 2007 for hacking into the mobile phones of three royal staff.

There have been calls for Mr. Cameron to sack him following claims that many of the illegal actions that the NoW journalists are accused of took place when he was still working for it — an allegation he denies.

Tim Toulmin, Director of the Press Complaints Commission, said it was widely regarded as a “serious oversight” on Mr. Coulson’s part that as Editor he did not know what was going on. The PCC would investigate whether it was “misled” into believing that the practice of phone-hacking was not widespread.

John Whittingdale, chairman of the committee, said that the Guardian revelations “raised questions” about the extent of phone-hacking.

The newspaper has alleged that mobile phones of “thousands” of public figures were hacked by private detectives hired by NoW staff to get stories and that the tabloid paid more than £1 million pounds in damages to at least three people after forcing them to sign a “gagging clause”.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

168 killed in Iran plane crash
Colombo cancels arms import from China, Pakistan
Blair, U.K. candidate for EU presidency
Guardian journalist backs up report
Protests over Nepal budget
Zawahiri warns Pakistan
Volunteers endure Mars flight simulation experiment

Copyright © 2009, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu