Hackgate: where are we?

Now we’ve gone a day or two without major resignations and other matters are beginning to appear on the serious papers’ front pages it seems like the time to attempt rough summary of where we stand.

Was there widespread illegal behaviour in tabloid newspapers?

So far only two tabloid employees, Paul McMullan and the late Sean Hoare have said so on the record.  McMullan memorably in the conversation recorded by Hugh Grant and published in the New Statesman on 12^th April 2011, said this:

Me Ah . . . I think that was one of the questions asked last week at one of the parliamentary committees. They asked Yates [John Yates, acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police] if it was true that he thought that the NoW had been hacking the phones of friends and family of those girls who were murdered . . . the Soham murder and the Milly girl [Milly Dowler].
Him Yeah. Yeah. It's more than likely. Yeah . . . It was quite routine.  Full Text

This was almost three months before the Guardian printed the allegation that Millie Dowler’s phone had been hacked and the affair entered the stratosphere.  Though this was certainly not the first time such allegation had been made, such as this from the legendarily meticulous New York Times on 1^st September 2010.

When the New York Times investigated phone-hacking they found a dozen journalists who confirmed this, but only one, Sean Hoare, who was prepared to speak publicly.  Mr Hoare died in the midst of the furore.

While there is a temptation to think that is just too convenient before jumping into conspiracy theories it’s worth recalling that Mr Hoare had said that “my doctor has said that with the state of my liver I ought to be dead,” a few weeks earlier.  A man whose body had been wrecked by substance abuse but was still drinking found himself under intense stress:  in those circumstances death is not really surprising.  It would really help resolve this if one of the reporters who spoke to the New York Times (or anyone else who worked there at the time) were to have the courage to take Hoare’s place by speaking publically.

Perhaps the best lead we have today is the Harbottle & Lewis emails, which News Corp claimed supported their “one rogue reporter” response in 2007 to the jailing of Mulcaire and Goodman.  While Lord MacDonald, former Director of Public Prosecutions has said that he found evidence of serious criminality within three to five minutes of looking at those emails.  Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, after all Neil Innes tweets, Harbottle and Lewis were my lawyers when the Rutles "arrived". I was left with no copyright, no writing credit and no producers royalties.

Another possible obstacle to discovering what exactly happened is the names of the police investigations, Operation Weeting into phone hacking and Operation Elveden into Police corruption set up by former Chief Constable of Norfolk, Andy “Don’t You Dare Call ME Bent” Hayman.  This is why.

And then there’s the Champney’s connection.  Sir Paul Stephenson has, of course, announced his resignation as Metropolitan Police Commissioner, in part because of his £12,000 worth of hospitality there, the ubiquitous Neil Wallis found time to work for them, as well as the News of the World and the Metropolitan Police, and Rebekah Brooks’ husband Charlie has his “kriotherapy” spa there.  But the Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee will no doubt sniff out any wrong doing, under the chairmanship of the scrupulously financially correct Dr Keith Vaz, who just happens to be a business partner of the owners of Champney’s

A couple of essential documents if anyone wants to understand the sordid state of the UK popular press in the early part of the last decade is the Operation Motorman report, WhatPrice Privacy, which includes details of how personal details were “blagged” and even a detailed price list and the follow up report, What Price Privacy Now which has a fascinating table of how many times publications employed private detective.  Interestingly the News of the World was way down in fifth place behind the Daily Mail where 58 journalists paid for 952 transactions, with the People, Daily Mirror and Mail on Sunday all above it.

Though if this report of the long-rumoured "Black Ops" room at Fox News checks out Murdoch's British travails may seem trivial.

It's not all Murdoch's fault:  those who buy the tittle-tattle help create the environment in which it flourishes.  An important point from an Aussie competitor.

And finally, if anyone has persevered this long they deserve a laugh:  Jon Stewart's take on the scandal.
PS Breaking as this was being written, did James Murdoch mislead parliament on Taylor payoff?