This announcement follows claims in the New York Times at the weekend that the practice of phone hacking at the newspaper was far more widespread than so far recognised. Furthermore the detail that the then editor Andy Coulson apparantly knew about, condoned and even requested phone hacking is likely to continue to be a focal point to the story due to his current role as a close advisor to David Cameron and Director of Communications - the News of the World continue to maintain that only one employee is ever known to have been hacking people's phones and that he did so without the knowledge of his employers. The NYT story presents a very different picture:
But interviews with more than a dozen former reporters and editors at News of the World present a different picture of the newsroom. They described a frantic, sometimes degrading atmosphere in which some reporters openly pursued hacking or other improper tactics to satisfy demanding editors. Andy Coulson, the top editor at the time, had imposed a hypercompetitive ethos, even by tabloid standards. One former reporter called it a “do whatever it takes” mentality. The reporter was one of two people who said Coulson was present during discussions about phone hacking. Coulson ultimately resigned but denied any knowledge of hacking.
News of the World was hardly alone in accessing messages to obtain salacious gossip. “It was an industrywide thing,” said Sharon Marshall, who witnessed hacking while working at News of the World and other tabloids. “Talk to any tabloid journalist in the United Kingdom, and they can tell you each phone company’s four-digit codes. Every hack on every newspaper knew this was done.”
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