rupert murdoch

News of the World Tried to Hack 9/11 Victims’ Phones

That’s the allegation made by a former New York City cop, who said News of the World reporters offered to pay him for access to September 11 victims’ phone records, especially those of British victims. The cop, who now works as a private investigator (and supposedly does plenty of work for American journalists, or so claims the Mirror, anyway), turned down the job because he “knew how insensitive such research would be, and how bad it would look.” Just look bad?

Meanwhile, top government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, are calling on Rupert Murdoch to drop his bid to buy British Sky Broadcasting — as well as looking into how governmental regulations could block Murdoch’s deal for the lucrative TV station. Conventional wisdom in the wake of the news that News of the World’s shutdown holds that Murdoch killed the paper to keep the bid alive; the PR element of that move clearly wasn’t as successful as Murdoch had hoped. The paper might be dead, but its misdeeds live on — or as News of the World might have put it: “Revealed! Zombie Mistakes Strangle Media Mogul.”

Phone hacking: 9/11 victims ‘may have had mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters’ [Mirror UK]
A Top British Leader Urges Murdoch to Drop TV Deal [NYT]

News of the World Tried to Hack 9/11 Victims’ Phones