July 9 (Bloomberg) — Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World and Sun newspapers face separate investigations by London police and U.K. lawmakers over claims they obtained personal information through illegal means. The Metropolitan Police will look into the allegations, Commissioner Paul Stephenson said in a statement today. Thirty- one journalists working for the tabloid newspapers acquired private information through “blagging,” or underhand means, the U.K.’s Information Commission said.
The Guardian reported yesterday that Murdoch’s News Corp. paid more than 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) to settle lawsuits claiming journalists used private investigators who illegally hacked into mobile phones of politicians, sports stars and entertainers. The report throws a spotlight on the news- gathering methods of the competitive U.K. newspaper industry.
“If things came to a head and there was enough political interest in this,” the newspapers and individual journalists could face criminal charges for breaching data privacy laws, said Nick Graham, the head of the information and privacy practice at Denton Wilde Sapte LLP in London.
Cameron Twist
In Parliament, Home Office minister David Hanson told lawmakers the government first learned of the Guardian’s allegations last night. He said he couldn’t answer questions on why the victims, which the report said included former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, hadn’t been told by the police.
The report has taken on a political twist, drawing in Andy Coulson, the communications chief of David Cameron, leader of the U.K.’s opposition Conservative Party. Coulson was formerly deputy editor and then editor of the News of the World.
The scoop by the Guardian, a pro-Labour party newspaper, is an attempt to go after the opposition Conservative party, said Lorna Tilbian, a media analyst at Numis Securities in London.
Coulson resigned as editor of News of the World in 2007 after reporter Clive Goodman was jailed along with private investigator Glenn Mulcaire for intercepting phone messages left for members of Prince Charles’ staff and of Gordon Taylor, chief executive officer of the Professional Footballers Association. Coulson at the time denied any knowledge of Goodman’s actions, which the newspaper portrayed as an isolated incident.
John Whittingdale, chairman of the House of Commons Media Committee, said today he will re-open an inquiry into the case.
“If there were more than 1,000 phone taps, it beggars belief that this was just one journalist and that senior executives didn’t know,” Liberal Democrat lawmaker Chris Huhne said in Parliament today.
Murdoch Unaware
The Information Commission said in an e-mailed statement today that it had documented “widespread media involvement in illegally obtaining personal information.”
“Following a court order in 2008 we made available a copy of some information from our investigation into the buying and selling of personal information, to lawyers acting on behalf of Gordon Taylor,” Mick Gorrill, assistant information commissioner at the Information Commission, said in the statement. “This included material that showed that 31 journalists working for The News of the World and The Sun had acquired people’s personal information through blagging.”
News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch said yesterday that he wasn’t aware of any payments made to settle legal cases in which the company’s newspaper reporters may have been involved in criminal activity. “If that had happened, I would know about it,” Murdoch said in an interview at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho.
News International had no immediate comment, spokeswoman Daisy Dunlop said, but may release a statement later today.
Hacking Mobile Phones
According to the Guardian, Murdoch’s newspapers made out- of-court settlements that secured secrecy about three cases that may have shown evidence of journalists using investigators who hacked into the mobile-phone messages of public figures to access confidential personal data.
The newspaper said the conning of government agencies, phone companies and others into divulging information, before the mobile phone-hacking activity, occurred when Coulson was deputy and Rebekah Wade was the editor.
News Corp., the owner of the Wall Street Journal and Fox television network, last month named Wade CEO of News International, overseeing five newspaper titles including the Sun, the Sunday Times and News of the World, effective Sept. 1.
Cameron’s Support
The Guardian cited an unidentified person with London’s Metropolitan Police as saying there was evidence that News Group employees used private investigators to hack into thousands of mobile phones.
“I have asked Assistant Commissioner John Yates to establish the facts” of the case, Stephenson said.
Coulson said yesterday that the Guardian story refers to an alleged payment made after he left the newspaper. Cameron today defended Coulson.
“It is wrong for newspapers to breach into people’s privacy without justification,” which is why Coulson resigned as editor of News of the World two-and-a-half-years ago, Cameron told reporters in London today. “Of course I knew about that resignation before offering him a job, but I believe you should give people a second chance.”
Cameron said Coulson “does a proper and upstanding job at all times” as director of communication for the Conservatives. Asked whether Coulson’s job was safe, Cameron said: “yes, of course.”
Some media analysts said the revelations are not a surprise given the dog-eat-dog world of U.K. tabloids.
“We always knew that journalists tried every trick in the book to get a scoop,” said Numis’s Tilbian. “It’s as old as the hills in this entrapment business. This is just the electronic version.”