We haven’t heard much from the News Corp/Murdoch hacking scandal lately. I think that is all about to change:
A former News of the World reporter has alleged that there was a massive cover-up of phone hacking at the paper.
Clive Goodman, the former royal reporter jailed for his role in phone hacking, wrote a letter in 2007 claiming that phone hacking was “widely discussed” at editorial meetings, and that former editor Andy Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed to say in court that he was a rogue element within the paper.
The claims are deeply damaging to Coulson, who has always maintained that he did not know about the hacking going on at his paper. They are also politically perilous for Cameron, who took Coulson on even as evidence mounted against him. Moreover, they raise fresh danger for James and Rupert Murdoch, both of whom claimed to know nothing about hacking. Before the documents were released, the select committee for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport announced that it is “likely” to recall James Murdoch when Parliament resumes in September.
The letter was one of several documents published by a parliamentary committee on Tuesday afternoon. The Guardian’s Nick Davies saw the letters before they were published.
This should raise a lot of alarms, not only in the U.K., but also in the other nation’s now investigating the Murdoch owned company.