Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Ah. Pawn to King 7.

Murdoch's creatures make the only logical move available to them - dump on their News Editor, and move from ONE rogue reporter to TWO rogue reporters.

:angeldevil:

News of the World shifts away from 'one-rogue' phone-hacking response

Tabloid publisher is battling to regain credibility by gradually distancing itself from Ian Edmondson

Dan Sabbagh guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 18 January 2011 22.09 GMT

Mired in a deluge of slow-moving celebrity phone-hacking lawsuits, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is battling to regain credibility by gradually distancing itself from Ian Edmondson, the senior News of the World editor at the heart of the latest round of court allegations.

The tabloid publisher was quick to recognise the gravity of today's courtroom claim by Glenn Mulcaire the private investigator previously jailed for his part in hacking the mobile phones of members of the royal household at the behest of royal editor Clive Goodman who claimed that Edmondson, No 3 at the newspaper, had instructed him to hack into the mobile phone of the football agent Sky Andrew.

Meanwhile, Edmondson, under investigation by his own newspaper, is already feeling the heat. The gaggle of lawyers acting for the celebrities suing the newspaper argue that all News Corp has done is move from the "one rogue" referring to the already jailed Goodman to a "two rogue" strategy. News Corp continues to concede as little as possible they argue only suspending journalists where there is a prima facie case for one individual reporter to answer.

News Corp insists, though, that its approach has changed. It wants litigants to see what evidence they can put in the public domain, to see what information emerges from Mulcaire's notebooks, which are gradually being released by the Metropolitan police. It says it is prepared to act and has been for months if "new information is put before us".

It is a high-risk approach. News Corp knows there is the potential for one of the phone hacking cases to develop each week. The news story continues to run on, damaging the company's credibility at a time when senior Labour sources believe Rupert and James Murdoch are trying to negotiate a behind- the-scenes deal to get the News Corporation buyout of BSkyB waved through by Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary.


Meanwhile, the evidence provided by the Met to claimants such as ex-footballer Andy Gray remains sketchy with large parts of key documentation, phone records and notes redacted. It is not clear what will come out if the Met is forced to provide more information to litigants and, indeed, if any cases come to trial. But for now any journalist from the News of the World named in the fashion of Edmondson will have to be immediately suspended.

This, perhaps, could help insulate past and present senior executives Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, and Rebekah Brooks, another former editor, who moved to the Sun, then became the chief executive of News International, News Corp's UK newspaper arm. There is no evidence to suggest either any direct contact with Mulcaire or any other phone hacking.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan...ne-hacking