by Patrick EdmondsThe News International phone-hacking scandal, now known as the "Leveson Inquiry" involves an ongoing controversy involving the UK tabloid newspaper News of the World as well as other tabloid newspapers published by News International, which is a subsidiary of the larger News Corporation. This global news conglomerate is popularly known in North America as the parent company of Fox News. Employees of this news group have been accused, and some convicted of hacking into phones, as well as police bribery, in order to get information for news stories. Investigations from 2005-2007 found several employees guilty of hacking the cell phones of celebrities, politicians and members of the Royal Family. The story again dominated news stories in July of 2011, when it was revealed that the phones of deceased soldiers, victims of the 7/7 London bombings, and a 13-year-old girl that died in 2002 had also been hacked.
Milly Dowler, the 13-year-old, disappeared in March of 2002, and her body was found six months later. In this time, journalists hacked into Dowler's voicemail in order to find information on the story. It was discovered that they deleted a few messages, which in addition to the crime of deleting evidence, gave false hope to Dowler's parents that she may have deleted them herself, and was alive. Dowler was another victim among up to 5,800 others who where alleged to have been targeted by the best-selling newspaper in search of stories. The services of private investigator Glenn Mulicare were used by at least 28 people on 2,266 occasions to hack into phone messages, according to his notebook. Mulicare and Clive Goodman, a reporter, went to prison in 2007 after admitting hacking into royal family staff messages. Detectives are now using Mulicare's notebook in order to identify other reporters that may have used his services.
With the new leads in the story, Prime Minister David Cameron announced a public government inquiry to investigate the issue further. Cameron named Lord Justice Leveson as Chairman of the inquiry. The inquiry consists on looking into phone hacking at News of the World, police bribery, and a general review into culture and ethics of the British media. Ironically this story has been extremely popular in the UK media, with the Leveson Inquiry hearing from celebrities including Hugh Grant, J.K. Rowling, and others who believe they may have been victims of phone hacking. For two weeks, starting November 21st the Leveson Inquiry will be hearing from these high-profile witnesses on phone hacking and other forms of media intrusion into people's privacy. Public trust in the media has declined significantly with these events, and the Leveson Inquiry is attempting to find all of those at fault, and to rebuild the culture and ethics of the UK media as a whole.
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