#PhoneHackingScandal
The Fall of a British Tabloid
#PhoneHackingScandal
The Fall of a British Tabloid
The News of the World phone hacking scandal was a major media and political controversy in the United Kingdom that came to light in the early 2000s and peaked in 2011. Journalists and private investigators working for the British tabloid were found to have illegally accessed the voicemails of celebrities, politicians, members of the royal family, and even victims of crime, most notably murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The revelation that the tabloid had deleted voicemails from Dowler’s phone sparked public outrage and led to the closure of the 168-year-old newspaper in July 2011. The scandal prompted multiple police investigations, high-profile arrests, and the Leveson Inquiry—a public investigation into press ethics and regulation. It exposed deep ethical failures within parts of the British press and raised serious concerns about media power and accountability.
Paxman: Piers Morgan Taught Me How to Hack Voicemails
- Tuesday, 23 May 2023
At the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics in 2012, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman recounted an unsettling incident involving former tabloid editor Piers Morgan. Paxman testified that during a lunch in September 2002, Morgan "gave a sort of demonstration" on how to hack into people's voicemail messages. According to Paxman, Morgan explained the practice by noting how easy it was to access voicemail by simply calling a number and entering a default PIN. Paxman said he remembered the moment vividly because he found it "depressing," highlighting the casual attitude toward privacy violations at the time. His account added to the growing evidence of widespread and normalized phone hacking practices within sections of the British media.
