Claims that News Corps. phone-hacking scandal has been blown to unfair proportions by opponents with a “commercial or political agenda” do not stand up given the public record of criminal activity writes Ryan Chittum for the Columbia Journalism Review.
It’s true that rival newspapers in UK are eager to air out News Corporation’s dirty drawers, but the seriousness of the wrongdoing justifies their zest for the story. Writes Chittum, “For starters, executives, editors, and reporters at News Corp.’s UK unit have: bribed the police; illegally hacked thousands of people’s phones, including a 13-year-old then-missing murder victim’s; tampered with evidence while the victim was still missing. They interfered with a second murder investigation; misled police and Parliament, repeatedly, when questioned about these activities; knowingly employed an ax-murder suspect who had been convicted and imprisoned for planting cocaine on an innocent woman in a divorce case; paid millions of dollars to victims explicitly in exchange for their silence; paid large sums to former employees after they had been convicted of crimes committed at the behest of News Corporation employees; continued to pay for convicted former employees’ high-powered lawyers.” -db
From a commentary for the Columbia Journalism Review, July 20, 2011, by Ryan Chittum.