UK Phone-Hacking Probe Could End System of Self-Regulation
18.05.12
(Updates with comment from inquiry in ninth paragraph.)
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- News Corp.’s phone-hacking scandal has united editors and some victims over the possibility that a judge-led inquiry that started today may scrap the U.K. system of media self-regulation in favor of government limits on press freedom.
Illegal tactics by reporters at Rupert Murdoch’s now- shuttered News of the World tabloid went unchecked partly because the Press Complaints Commission doesn’t have the power to investigate misconduct, said Graham Shear, a lawyer for celebrity victims whose own phone was hacked.
The inquiry, set up in July by Prime Minister David Cameron, formally begins in London less than a week after News Corp. Deputy Chief Operating Officer James Murdoch gave testimony for a second time to lawmakers running a parallel probe of the scandal. Judge Brian Leveson is tasked with finding out how the current regulations failed and proposing new rules.
Source: BusinessWeek