Exaro has been nominated for the the ‘breaking news award’, marking the ‘best story of the year’ in the 2013 British Journalism awards.
The tale which came from one of my sources revealed what Murdoch really thought about the phone hacking and bribery scandals and disclosed his fury about the police investigation.
There is also a tale on this site.
The story put together under Mark Watts, Exaro’s editor, was a team effort with a lot of input from Alex Varley-Winter.
Separately Fiona O’Cleirigh has been nominated for her series on Coiste for the ‘new journalist of the year’. The story was about £1.3m EU aid being given to an ex IRA prisoners group.
The full list of nominations are on the UK Press Gazette’s website.
AS you can see there will be stiff competition from the nationals but last year Exaro did achieve a breakthrough when I won Political Journalist of the year for the exposure of Ed Lester’s tax arrangements while he was head of the Student Loans Company.
Category Archives: media
links to where my stories are published
Now the Mirror faces celebs phone hacking trial as News International shown to have hacked England football manager for four years
Two reports today reveal the widening scale of the phone hacking scandal at both News International and the Trinity Mirror group.
The authoritative Inforrm blog carries a report from lawyer James Heath on a decision handed down today by Mr Justice Mann throwing out an attempt by the Mirror to strike out claims from three celebrities and a nanny to a celebrity couple that their phones were hacked.
It reports:”Shobna Gulati, the Coronation Street actress, Sven Goran-Eriksson, the former England manager, Abbie Gibson, former nanny to Victoria and David Beckham, and Garry Flitcroft, the former Captain of Blackburn Rovers, brought claims against MGN Ltd (publishers of, amongst other titles, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People newspapers).
The four claims are for misuse of private information and breach of confidence arising out of the alleged interception of voicemail messages (commonly known as “phone hacking”).”
The decision means the Mirror will have defend the action at a future trial or try to settle out of court.
Trinity Mirror plc (the parent company of MGN) said after that case
“The Company has previously announced that its subsidiary company MGN Ltd had received Particulars of Claim in four civil claims alleging phone “hacking” and was challenging the basis of those claims. The Company notes that the application to strike out two of the claims has not been successful. A linked application to challenge the basis on which two other claims were made was also unsuccessful. MGN continues to contest the four claims vigorously.”
By coincidence the NI hacking trial was also dominated by allegations that the News of the World had hacked the phone of Sven Goran-Eriksson, for four years.
Martin Hickman reports on the Hacked Off website:
The paper’s private detective, Glenn Mulcaire kept notes on the Swede listing his mobile phone number and other personal details between 2002 and 2006, Mark Bryant-Heron, prosecuting, told the hacking trial.
During that time in 2004, the News of the World ran front-page stories about Eriksson’s relationship with the Football Association PA, Faria Alam, and in 2006 an undercover sting on him by the paper’s reporter Mazher Mahmood, he told the jury.
Mr Mahmood, the News of the World’s former investigative specialist, has not been charged with any offence and is not on trial.
Outlining how the paper targeted Eriksson while Mulcaire was working for the paper, Mr Bryant-Heron said police recovered two recordings in his possession of voicemails from Eriksson’s phone.
One was from an Italian footballer and a second from the Everton chairman Bill Kenwright, inquiring whether he should sign an unnamed England player. ”
The evidence and allegations about phone hacking being rife in the tabloid press continues to rise. The picture is not a pretty one.
Phone Hacking Trial: Journalists told police they hacked Milly Dowler’s phone, court hears – Martin Hickman
Relationships between the News of the World and Surrey police are laid bare at today’s court hearing. The police repeatedly heard the hacked messages from murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone and did nothing to investigate the hacking. The paper obviously realised it had committed a big error in revealing the hacked messages when it removed verbatim quotes on the phone from the story in its second edition on April 15 2002.
Day 7: Journalists at the News of the World repeatedly told Surrey police that they had listened to messages on Milly Dowler’s phone, the hacking trial heard today. Senior members of staff investigating the 13-year-old’s disappearance told the force that the paper had heard her voicemails on at least three occasions, the Old Bailey heard.
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Phone Hacking Trial: NI security guards ‘used war film codewords’ during covert operation to hide evidence – Martin Hickman
This latest revelation about the behaviour of News International’s security guards from the hacking trial could come from a Boys Own comic if it wasn’t such a serious matter to conceal evidence from the police. Also says something about the mentality of Rupert Murdoch’s staff!
Day 6: Security guards working for News International used codewords from war films and the Cold War during a covert operation to hide evidence from the police, the Old Bailey heard today.
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Life too frenetic to notice reporters hacking phones – Andy Coulson’s defence
andy coulson – too frenetic a lifestyle to notice phone hacking. Pic courtesy: Press Gazette
A report by Martin Hickman on the Hacked Off website tonight reveals Coulson plans to take the stand to defend himself on all charges.
His lawyer Timothy Langdale, QC, told the jury that they had heard “only one side of the story.”
Among the extraordinary quotes he promised the former News International employee would tell the Old Bailey trial was that life was so frentic he hadn’t noticed any phone hacking nor authorised bribery payments to police officers.
His lawyer said David Cameron’s former director of communications had not taken part in any wrongdoing and would paint a picture of the frenetic pace of life inside the News of the World, when a mass of information passed his desk.
Competition inside the Sunday tabloid was “perhaps at times unhealthy” and journalists “wanted to impress”, Mr Langdale told the Old Bailey.
Referring to the claim that his client had approved royal editor Clive Goodman’s requests to pay corrupt police officers, Mr Langdale said: “He does not believe Mr Goodman had done or was doing any such thing.”
The prosecution was mistaken in its belief that if messages were hacked by Glen Mulcaire or others at the paper that the editor must have known, he added.
Amazing what little editors know about!
Phone Hacking Trial Report: Coulson cleared payments to police for Queen’s private phone book, jury hears – Martin Hickman
Latest revelation of Coulson’s approval of corrupt £2000 cash payments to police two Royal directories – one with the Queen’s private no on it- illustrates the excesses the tabloids went to set up the hacking scandal- and they knew in internal emails they risked jail if they were found out.
Andy Coulson approved two corrupt payments to “palace cops” despite being warned by one of his reporters that he risked criminal charges, the phone hacking trial heard today.
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Phone Hacking Trial: Coulson-Brooks affair assists Crown’s conspiracy claim – Martin Hickman
At last one of Fleet Street’s best known secrets – the Coulson-Brooks affair becomes public. The 6 year affair was going on, it appears, while Milly Dowler’s phone was being hacked in 2002. This the prosecution allege is why the pair could easily conspire together to commit crimes!
The News of the World ordered the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone on the same day it sympathised with her distraught parents’ anguish, the phone hacking trial heard today. Milly went missing near her home in Walton on Thames, Surrey, in March 2002, sparking a large public police investigation and a parallel, covert one at the News of the World, the Old Bailey was told.
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Phone Hacking Trial Report: Brooks and Coulson would have known about phone hacking at NoTW, jury is told – Martin Hickman
blistering report of the opening of the prosecution case against Rebekah Brooks in the great hacking trial on the Hacked Off and Inforrm blog websites.
Rebekah Brooks personally approved payment of almost £40,000 to a civil servant in return for information, the phone hacking trial heard today. Mrs Brooks was editing the Sun newspaper when the payments were made to the official, Andrew Edis QC, prosecuting, told the jury.
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Phone Hacking “Trial of the Century” begins tomorrow: eight defendants face a total of seven charges
This is going to be very interesting as alongside Rupert Murdoch must be wondering whether his company may face corporate charges. This follows the two secret recordings of his and former chief executive Tom Mockridge released on the Exaro website over the last few weeks, particularly as Murdoch’s private views are in the hands of the Met Police.
The first phone-hacking trial begins next week before Mr Justice Saunders and a jury in Court 12 at the Central Criminal Court (the “Old Bailey”) in London on Monday 28 October 2013. The first day or two are expected to be taken up with legal argument and the selection of the jury so the prosecution opening is not likely to begin until Tuesday or Wednesday. The trial is expected to last at least 4 months.
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Exaro Exclusive: £1bn bill for phone hacking says Murdoch ex chief exec
Tom Mockridge Pic couretsy mediaweek.co.uk
He also discloses in the second transcript of a private meeting last November obtained by Exaro News that without US backing every UK paper -including the Sun and the Sunday Times – would now be closed down because of huge costs.
This is the second secret recording – the first revealed what Rupert Murdoch really thought about the hacking scandal.
In the new secret recording,Mockridge says: “There’s a shitload of just financial expense – across the civil cases,” he says. “The hacking probably, by the time it’s all over, is going to cost News Corp minimum of £500 million, if not a billion.”
On the future of NI in Britain he says: “If NI wasn’t a subsidiary to News Corporation, this company would be bankrupt now. There wouldn’t be a Sun, a Times, a Sunday Times. There’s no way this company, as a stand-alone operation, could afford to financially sustain the exposure it’s taken.”
The rest of the conversation is spiced with racy comments describing what has happened to NI as ” open heart surgery”. Lawyers who conducted the investigation into NI are described as ” bastards” and he gives the strongest commitment to saying NI will keep employing arrested journos even if found guilty in the courts.
Mr Mockridge now has a new job as chief executive of Virgin Media. News UK- the successor to News International – didn’t want to know about his comments while they employed him yesterday. A terse statement to Exaro said: “Tom Mockridge no longer works for the company”.
With a trial imminent I feel constrained from commenting except to say these figures are far higher than anything that has been revealed to shareholders and don’t include costs for other actions. However on the Inforrm blog there is a good comment piece by Michelle Stanistreet, president of the National Union of Journalists on the present situation facing journalists.
Westminster Confidential 